Customer Reviews

Zoo

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Many people were probably very angry upon reaching the end of Zoo when they realized that they had not just watched a documentary, they had watched an art house film deceptively packaged as a documentary. Zoo eschews all standards of documentary filming such as factual content or video interviews, and instead strives to amaze viewers with flashy cinematography, a haunting musical score, and existential self-referential segments that have little or no connection with the subject matter of the documentary. The potential audience for this film should be warned ahead of time that it provides few solid facts about the events in question, sheds no new light on the subject of bestiality, and fails to provide any insight into why human beings would choose to make love with animals.

Zoo is nominally about the events leading up to Kenneth Pinyan's death due to a perforated colon when he engaged in anal intercourse with an Arabian stallion on videotape, as well as the individuals in Pinyan's life who encouraged or were at least indifferent to his interest in bestiality. The word "nominally" may be giving Zoo too much credit, as it never even provides Pinyan's name, instead solely using his online moniker "Mr. Hands". None of the individuals associated with Pinyan, from the group of people who identify themselves as living the zoo lifestyle that he met with regularly to engage in acts of bestiality, to his ex-wife and child, or even the police and prosecutors involved in the aftermath of his death, are ever shown on screen. Director Robinson Devor choose to use actors to create reenactments of events coupled with the occasional voiceover from audio interviews with a scant few people willing to talk about the issue. These audio tracks and reenactments do not even constitute the bulk of the film, which would have been acceptable if they gave any decent information. The vast majority of Zoo is simply long trailing shots of scenery or people matched with odd color schemes or eerie music. If these non-essential segments were all edited out, Zoo's runtime would be cut down from 80 minutes to somewhere around 30 minutes. There is no denying that Devor has a great talent for camera work and editing, but his talent is not suited to making documentaries.

Devor is so obsessed with producing a specific mood and theme, to the complete detriment of the "plot", that he might as well be directing an Italian giallo. Halfway through the film the actor who portrays a police officer is shown in front of an entirely white background while he talks about his reaction to being asked to act in the film that he is currently acting in. Occasionally throughout this monologue the screen flashes black, leaving a white ghost trail of the actor's silhouette. This sort of ploy crosses the line from artsy to self indulgent, especially considering that the monologue has only the most tenuous of connections to Pinyan or the zoo lifestyle. Perhaps Devor was trying to show that a subject as bizarre as animal love and the men who would risk potential death to take part in it could not successfully be explained by a straight forward exposition of events, but instead required a broader look at people and their environments in general that requires multiple viewings to really sink in.

Looking for an avant garde or artsy film to blow your mind with odd camera angles and off the wall color schemes? Look no further than Zoo. Those who actually wanted to learn something about Kenneth Pinyan or the mindset of people who would engage in such deviant acts can pass on this one.

If they hadn't spent so much footage on seemingly endless tracking shots of highways and byways, the filmmakers could have gone more into depth as to what causes bestiality urges in some people, the online communities they are involved in, and more. As it stands, the documentary is not very insightful in the long run. It feels as if it's only the first chapter in a series that will probably not be continued.

I've always thought there had to be more. Ever since the breaking news of Kenneth Pinyan's death, I have never liked the treatment his story was given. Either the object of tasteless jokes or scathing condemnation, his death has left a void that needed to be filled. Mostly, famed director Robinson Devor's documentary, 'Zoo,' doesn't do much to fill that void, but maybe no documentary can.

Mostly a reenactment, 'Zoo' traces back the account by actors who go to the facility where guests would engage in bestiality with stallions at a stable just outside of Seattle. Hooking up via the anonymity of the Internet, Pinyan (bka "Mr. Hands") and others from many regions joined up to spend time with one of the prized horses. Using eerie, low-ebbed synthesizer music, the film has a lurid quality as it unveils alienated men who bond through tequila and space exploration videos, making their way later solo to pair off with horses often in the middle of the night. Much of the photography is meant to touch on the aesthetics of the environs and equestrian beauty, but the analysis of the human aftermath is few and far between. One of the better aspects touches on the profile of the men: Varying in socio-economic and religious backgrounds, all of them seem tragically alone.

Much of the footage focuses on Pinyan who died one night after an encounter ruptured his colon. As the news headlines flashed across, it became one of those tragic, novelty human interest stories. Devor survey's some of those reactions. Anyone from CNN to Rush Limbaugh is given space, but then they go to some witnesses. Part of the testimony is about the behavior of the key people; some of the rest of the testimony has experts going over evidence of alleged abuse to the horses.

While I usually think it is the execution rather than the subject matter that wins for a documentary, I was looking for more insight. In place of so many animal experts analyzing the alleged abuse to the stallions in a nonconsensual setup, it would have been better to have psychologists analyze the human situation. Besides retracing the events before his death, they show the incremental steps as charges came to the fore by law enforcement who didn't have anti-bestiality laws in place in the state of Washington. As the stable manager relates, some people came by dropping religious "tracks" at his doorstep. The best scene is when the stable manager (played by an actor) opens up and honestly admits his inner thoughts after the whole incident. As much as I love animals, I must confess, I couldn't understand their emphasis on the animals' potential post trauma. If I lived near there, I would have left a pie on his doorstep, instead of a track, coaxing and encouraging them back to the human race.

While it isn't fair to expect "Just the facts ma'am," the presentation leaves some huge, gaping holes.

Devor has created an aesthetic masterpiece with this film, which I first saw at Sundance this year. Don't let the debate over the subject matter impact your decision to watch this film. It is too weird and beautiful to focus on such a hollow point. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a good introduction to the Gonzo Filmaking that is sweeping the documentary world.

I remember first hearing about this man who died from internal damage after having sex with a horse. I clearly remember thinking, uncharitably, "One less pervo." Yeah, not nice. But the idea of such an act is so repulsive, that one assumes the person is damaged and, in some strange way, has become "less than human." While repulsion, disgust, and horror is natural, I think it is unwise and unkind to dehumanize men (and women) who do acts that seem to "beast-ti-fy" them, in a literal sense.

This documentary allows for the humanity of the group of men who gathered regularly to indulge in said repulsive sexual preference. It has a very peaceful eerieness, a sort of pastoral idyll gone wrong feel. Some scenes are very powerful--the man running frantically with a pailful of bestiality recordings across the greenness of a field in the Pacific Northwest (one DVD dropped for police to find has the name of the horse with whom the victim met his demise); the men walking in the dimmest of lights, on the way, silently, to the barn; the strange, subdued, darkened partying of the men in the house where they had their meet-ups, featureless, moving heavily; the actor playing Ken Pinyan shirtless in a stall, silent and expectant, and in another scene, quietly holding his son's hand in an observatory. Lots of beautiful, somewhat melancholic shots of the Seattle area and Enumclaw and Mt Rainier, too.

We get a very clear sense of loneliness, alienation, need, and obssession, but it's all so fluid and quiet that it's almost poetic. Which is very freaky, given what we know is ultimately going on among these men with their dark urges--they get regularly sodomized by stallions. They record it. They share this obession online.

But the documentary, while doing an amazing job of setting mood and showing the loneliness of those involved in this taboo, the difficulty they have of actually connecting in normal relationships, also shows that this perversion is what allows them to connect to each other. Perhaps the only thing that links them regularly to people.

Where the major failures lie: 1. The missing parts from experts that might give us some insight (historically and contemporarily) about what leads to this sort of obsession/perversion/orientation/fetish/whatever. This man died because he had this urge he could not control. What might be at the heart of it. I left the film knowing not a whit more about zoophilia. 2. Its the lack of any insight into the taboo act itself or its repercussions to the wider circle--friends (if any), coworkers, and, above all, family. I found myself greatly sympathizing after the film was over for the ex-wife and son--who must be dealing still with the awfulness of what happened.

We're never explictly shown (thank God) or hear described what killed Ken Pinyan, but the death certificate is shown in a few passing cuts, where we see that the sigmoid colon was ruptured. The mind reels at that moment, thinking of that. It's a bit much. The imagination simply does not want to go there, and yet it seems to be helpless to do so. Ugh.

This film does serve one purpose. It's a gentle treatment of a very ungentle desire, and it balances the cruel jokes and snickerings that followed Mr. Pinyan's demise. I may have had an uncharitable reaction to hearing the news, but it enver occurred to me to start cracking jokes about it. It was only after seeing ZOO that I came online and realized the extent of the mocking and scorning. Wow.

So, this is a small look into what happened that includes audio-interviews with three of the parties involved--two of them zoophiliacs, one the horse rescuer who came to take away the animals owned by the victim. While I am not fully convinced of the protestations that this is about loving animals (seems to me it's more about screwing them/being screwed by them, not actually loving them or treating them with dignity), I think we can't really address the things that go wrong in the human psyche/heart/soul/mind unless we allow people to talk about it and share their views.

So, here is something of the perspective, desires, and the loneliness of the zoophiliac. Sanitized and beautified, but at least addressed. We won't admire these men. We might wanna walk away from them as fast as we can. But, it makes it harder to just think of Ken Pinyan as an internet joke.

I always find myself drawn to films that challenge our taboos. Little known director Robinson Devor may have known that many movie-goers do the same, and instead of exploiting his subject matter like so many documentarians do, he literally removes any sense of the provoking stigmas associated with the kind of subject matter he explores in Zoo. Interesting approach, because Zoo is an overview of the death of Ken Pinyan, who engaged in receptive penetrative intercourse with a full grown stallion on film, and died from it. Unbeknownst to this particular viewer, this was a fairly well covered story in the Seattle area and even influenced laws regarding lascivious actions using animals in the state of Washington, which were almost nonexistent.

Devor's film covers the story in a vague but provoking way. The atmosphere of the film is eerie but only a rare few of the landscape shots are oddly effective, albeit not incredibly impressive. In addition, the film touches base with quite a few people who were there and knew Pinyan personally, but unfortunately it is done using mostly audio, and that in turn means more mediocre photography. Still, Devor makes humans out of these people when I'd imagine the media wasn't so kind. By the same token, what they do and how Pinyan died is exactly what it is.

The nature of this bizarre subculture is hard to sympathize with and I'm not sure Devor and his team can be accused of doing so, but they still stare unflinchingly into this void. I found the film strangely fascinating and the style it was created with suggests that the filmmaker felt the same way. It's an uncomfortable but clean peak into a world many don't want to even know about. The film garnered moderate praise for its selection at both Cannes and Sundance, but the subject matter alone obviously prevents it from getting further exposure. At the very least, I'm curious what Devor and writer Charles Mudede do next. I would only recommend this to those who can appreciate thoughtful documentaries and are willing to deal with this kind of subject matter.

I saw this film based strictly on the box art and the description by one reviewer calling it "eerie". I was blown away by the nearly surreal, poetic beauty of this work, and I agree that, while the subject matter is quite upsetting, this film somehow transcends it's subject matter. This movie is not for "bungling" frat boys who want to laugh at everything. It is for people who are true fans of film art, and the limitlessness of the form. Haunting and spooky, lyrical and ephemeral, this "Zoo" is worth the admission.

I thought this documentary was quite well done. It was hard to watch at times, as they do show some quick flash footage shots from the actual death video (the audio was more difficult to endure...had to fast forward thru that...not for the squeamish). Like most people, when I heard the news of Ken Pinyan's death, I was disgusted, astounded, shocked, and saddened. Zoophilia is such a taboo subject, and how someone can take the love of animals to such a horrific extreme is impossible for me to understand. The film makers do make an effort to explore zoophilia from the perspectives of those intimately involved in this case (Pinyan's cronies).

There is a poignant interview in the middle of the movie with one of the actors who portrays a cop in the film. He talks about the tragedy that Pinyan bled to death, and we should not forget that he was a father and had a young son. It's hard to imagine being such a slave to those kind of desires, but the interviews with Pinyan's friends did help shed some light.

This movie affected me in two ways.
One. The zoo folks mentality. They sound so reasonable in their behavior. Loving animals "just felt right". Ok, fine, not to judge the absolute conduct or their behavior, but so many people have justified their actions on the "just felt right" paradigm. Charles Manson's followers or Hitler's would be in that bunch. And lesser folk's with bad proclivities, like child molesters. But were these people in Zoo really on that level as molesters? The animals were consenting. Consenting in that if they weren't, they wouldn't have obliged their human recipients. Disgusting to me perhaps, but not necessarily criminal or evil, or is it?

Two. The movie has very little actual footage of any participants, only a brief glimpse of Mr. Hands indulging in his chosen proclivity. The rest is arty reenactment. It's well shot, cool and all but its not suited to a serious documentary. To its credit tho Its much more well done than something you'd see on cable. The score by Paul Matthew Moore is excellent, being effective, somewhat ambient electronica, and the rhythm of the movie is hypnotic with more than a few good moments. But its just not a great movie.

I thought this was going to be more of a professional documentary on bestiality and their emotional attraction to animals instead of bonding to people. It was more about just the group and story in Washington. I was looking for a lot more psycology on the subject matter.