Here's why you should be catching the special screening of The Zookeeper's Wife.

What should you look out for?

• A war movie where the story is set against a backdrop of a zoo. That's a first.
  
• Jessica Chastain. This Golden Globe winning actress singlehandedly takes the movie forward.
  
• Niki Caro. Her style of direction and the survival story she chose to tell makes the movie stand out from the already existing lot of Holocasut movies.

The only thing more gut-wrenching than seeing human life suffer and perish in the times of war is seeing animals die unnatural, untimely deaths. Not one or two, but the entire zoo. The film tells the story of a zookeeper couple the Żabińskis in Warsaw through the war torn years of 1939 to 1945 and how they rescued hundred of Jews from the ghetto in their zoo.

A radiant Jessica Chastain in the titular role of the zookeeper’s wife, Antonina Żabiński merrily feeding apples to big hippopotamuses (hippopotami?) and petting tiny bunny rabbits is a rather unexpected opening sequence for a film based on the Holocaust. But happy times last shorter than Vijay Mallya’s arrest and German forces attack Warsaw, dropping bombs wiping out almost the entire zoo. What happens next will blow you away. Literally. Daniel Brühl as Dr. Lutz Heck, Hitler’s very own zoologist and the main antagonist of the film shoots and kills animals willy-nilly, sets Jewish people on fire, takes pride in doing so and also makes the Warsaw zoo his own laboratory for his personal (read: evil) experiments with animal breeding. Heck is the quintessential bad man and mad scientist put together.

Niki Caro's direction breaks away from the many survival stories that we've been an audience to. She weaves some really strong moments through war shots, intense scenes that do not need the company of dialogues and the outstanding performance of the actors that beautifully bring out their inner turmoil. The bits of the story set in the Warsaw ghetto are morose but a fresh portrayal of the innumerable Holocaust films that have been made. The story moves forward at a swift and a slow pace alternately throughout the duration of the film and rightfully captures the authenticity and the historical significance. A lot of period dramas give 'opportunity' for only some of the characters to build and actually leave their mark and a similar occurrence takes place here as the film focuses mostly on Antonina and her husband Dr. Jan. Only few others of the cast are given screen time to establish themselves as well-rounded characters.The music by Harry Gregson-Williams is absolutely goosebump inducing and leaves you on the edge of your seat. The film is shot by Andrij Parekh, known for his work in Blue Valentine and Madam Bovary and he captures the right kind of mood through out the film.

If there’s one lesson in this for all of us is that our age old belief of ‘tit for tat’ (eent ka jawaab patthar se, for the Bollywood enthusiasts) is utterly useless and that compassion trumps toxicity. This one’s a real tear-jerker. Don’t forget your tissues.

-Review by Aniket Chitnawis