Some Lines Should Not Be Crossed
PARK CITY, Utah — "Zoo" is a documentary about what director Robinson Devor accurately characterizes as "the last taboo, on the boundary of something comprehensible." But remarkably, an elegant, eerily lyrical film has resulted.
"Zoo," premiering before a rapt audience Saturday night at Sundance, manages to be a poetic film about a forbidden subject, a perfect marriage between a cool and contemplative director (the little-seen "Police Beat") and potentially incendiary subject matter: sex between men and animals. Not graphic in the least, this strange and strangely beautiful film combines audio interviews (two of the three men involved did not want to appear on camera) with elegiac visual re-creations intended to conjure up the mood and spirit of situations. The director himself puts it best: "I aestheticized the sleaze right out of it."
Devor and his writing partner, Charles Mudede, live in Seattle and were stunned, as were many in the state, by a story that broke in 2005 about a local man who died after having sex with an Arabian stallion. Though bestiality is not illegal in Washington, the subsequent revelation of the existence of an Internet-based zoophile community (the men refer to themselves as "zoos," hence the title) was a shock.
There are certain things in any civilization that should be forbidden for any number of reasons. The sexual abuse of animals is one of those things. There are some things that cannot be "aestheticized" no matter how you try to dress it up. The more things like this are mainstreamed by filmmakers like Devor, the more we are diminished as a society. Sundance did a great disservice by showing something like this. This is not "edgy" or "art" or "aesthetic". This is perversion.
We should call it what it is and denounce it, not make movies about it.
UPDATE: Others: Right Wing Nut House, Libertas, Blogs for Bush, Preemptive Karma, Riehl World View, Hill Chronicles, Dumb Ox Daily News, Return of Scipio,
Animals, Civilization | Gaius Monday, 22 January , 2007
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Blue Crab Boulevard » Right For The Wrong Reasons — Wednesday, 24 January , 2007 @ 2:03 pm
By Sluggo, Monday, 22 January , 2007 @ 4:07 pm
oh how judgemental of you…./sarc off
By Quilly Mammoth, Monday, 22 January , 2007 @ 5:56 pm
Right, and next you’ll be saying that society has the right to determine which social contracts are best suited for that society…Such as marriage.
By Jack, Monday, 22 January , 2007 @ 7:49 pm
I’m reminded of the immortal words of Catherine the Great, “Bring me my stallion boys, I’m in a mood!”
But to wax serious a moment, this is Sundance, and this is the entertainment industry.
So maybe the “horse whisperer” was really a coded pick-up film.
But the ‘artiste’ makes an interesting point. On the one hand one would hope that stuff like this would be exposed to the public for what it is, so people would at elates know that such things go on so that others could avoid becoming involved with the people involved, but on the other hand as you pointed out he said he, “I aestheticized the sleaze right out of it.”
Which is a strange comment especially from a supposed artist because to me an art form, especially one like film which is basically a story telling medium, should display things as they are by nature (or misuse of nature in this case).
The attempt to disguise truth by beautifying supposed desires versus exposing reality and outcome is to me a clue to intent.
I was also fascinated by these lines in the review:
potentially incendiary subject matter:
“It happens,” the filmmaker said, “so it’s part of who we are.”
Well, true some things have to be documented so others can understand them but taking a neutral view of any moral issue is just plain lazy, not to mention in some cases, crazy.
Attempted genocide happens, is that therefore not supposed to be alien to the filmmaker or audience? Just because something happens is that justification for saying it cannot be alien to what is natural and human?
That’s a mighty low standard of the alien and immoral and the corrupt and the bizarre. It’s also a mighty low standard of art if you ask me.
Too many “Artists” today just won’t take a stand on anything, unless it is political, in which case they generally take the wrong stand. You can call taking no stand, or the wrong stand, a lot of things, but you can’t really call it art.