Hot Docs 2009

In July 2005, a group of "zoophiles" living in the shadow of Washington's Mt. Rainier were brought to national attention when a Seattle family man died of a perforated colon after engaging in intercourse with an Arabian stallion. In exploring the inner thoughts and feelings of this community and their obsession-what he calls "the last taboo, on the boundary of something comprehensible" -director Robinson Devor has crafted a poetic and meditative rumination on alienation and connection, and on the boundaries that separate what we can accept from what we cannot. Neither graphic nor exploitative, the film is as eloquent in its inquiry into the lives and psyches of these individuals (who speak for themselves but are represented by actors in re-enactments) as it is elegant in its formal austerity. Zoo combines the investigative impressionism of Errol Morris with the painterly surrealism of Peter Greenaway (the film's title is an all-too-convenient nod to Greenaway's avant-garde classic A Zed & Two Noughts) as it plunges us into an eerie Pacific Northwest netherworld reminiscent of early Gus Van Sant and David Lynch.