SET DECOR: Speaking of their home, the Bauhaus villa situated on the zoo grounds! You were able to visit the actual site.Ĭaro: Yes! It all begins and ends with Suzie Davies, the Production Designer.Ĭaro: AND Charlotte.oh my god! I’ve never worked with a set decorator like her. And Jan and Antonina kept those things alive in the sanctuary of their home. They lost their scientists and their historians. This is what surprised me when I got to deeply research the movie, was how much Poland lost when it lost its Jewish population. And they, Jan and Antonina, socialized very much among the artistic and intelligentsia. It was the Paris of the north, a very sophisticated and cosmopolitan place.
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That was unexpected and lovely.Ĭaro: Well, Jan and Antonina were very cosmopolitan, as was Warsaw at the time.
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One would expect that they could never be able to come upstairs, at risk of being seen.and then when they did literally come up from below ground, it was presented in such a cultured, human way. SET DECOR: It was very surprising to see. And the way she created sanctuary for these poor traumatized refugees, to give them music and art and luxury, as much as she could-from midnight until dawn they could dwell in a version of a normal life. SET DECOR: Yes, and when these people came to her, they were stripped of the artifice that she had been dealing with, and there’s more of that natural interaction, as she would have with the animals.Ĭaro: That’s right, the instinct to protect and to nurture.profoundly female. It’s very beautiful, what she did, and very true. So she brought her instinct to protect and nurture animals to human refugees and created a sanctuary for them.
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And the fact that Antonina was much better with animals than with people-you see her in the cocktail party at the beginning of the movie and she’s barely able to make a sentence, and yet in the next scene with the elephant, she’s absolutely fearless.
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When I first became aware of the script, I was really compelled by this seeming contradiction: What is a cage and what is a refuge? Or a sanctuary. The zoo, itself, was a personal sanctuary, an animal sanctuary, a human sanctuary.Can we talk about that?Ĭaro: Yes, absolutely. I think often femininity is equated with weakness, and Antonina shows us that you can be very soft and very strong at the same time. That means more than you know, because my whole intention with all of the filmmaking was to work in a very feminine way, but to make very strong material in a feminine way. SET DECOR: What a gorgeous film this is! And that does not detract from the strength of the story.ĭirector Niki Caro: Oh, thank you. We were delighted to talk with Director Niki Caro about the film and the filmmaking experience.
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We know how rare making this kind of film is.” You don't feel a hierarchy.It's a very collaborative experience, and it's been heaven for me.there are no strange power plays or egos. The energy is great, you all are working together as a community, and everyone is participating in the exchange of ideas. “When you have both genders represented, then you have a healthier point of view. To make this come about, she brought on Production Designer Suzie Davies, Set Decorator Charlotte Dirickx SDSA* and several other top department heads who also are female. Jessica Chastain, who plays Antonina, noted and appreciated the overall POV. One person can make a difference in the world.”ĭirector Niki Caro certainly agrees, as she dedicated herself to bring to life the story of the Warsaw zookeeper and his wife, the esteemed zoologist Jan Zabinski and animal whisperer Antonina Zabinska, and their humane rescue of over 300 Jews during World War II. “It is never too late for acts of compassion and it is never too late to act. Producer Diane Miller Levin, who a decade ago began the process of bringing the true story of THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE to film audiences, describes its message for today. Surprisingly beautiful sets help tell the story of the humane rescue of over 300 Jewish refugees from the Warsaw ghetto.Director Niki Caro tells of the filmmaking experience.