Zoo

★★★★

(2007)

Openly endorsing a documentary re-enacting the peculiar social situation which led to a man’s death from having receptive anal sex with a horse in Washington, USA isn’t something I thought I’d be doing today. But after seeing and pondering Robinson Devor’s beautifully filmed doc at great length it would seem I’m doing exactly that.

Zoo doesn’t try and condemn Kenneth Pinyan, the quiet, Seattle family for what he did but instead goes for hushed interviews, rarely ever more than voice overs, talking frankly and openly about about the days and weeks leading up to the “incident”, about the meaning of consent and more over, about what the last taboo is exactly and ultimately, its effect on a small town.

Zoo lives as a pure document and one that looks directly at something which is impossible to not see as perversion but in doing so stretches our measure of how a documentary should be and can be filmed. In one of the most wonderfully shot factual movies ever, using natural light and carefully thought out scenes depicting the story without every being gratuitous in any way, it coxes you into its matter of fact horror.

It’s this tightrope walking that gives Zoo an odd (and I mean odd) sense of a small town mystery movie, steeped with shadows and heavy with unanswered questions. For something so upsetting to think about it really makes for compelling viewing and for better or for worse its a film that you wont forget in long while.', 'Zoo', '