Behind the scenes at Zurich Zoo: animal life like you’ve never seen it

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Far from the chaotic political demonstrations and the excitement of the red carpet of the Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival, a special, more discreet premiere took place on the sidelines of the event last February. The 600 seats of the opulent Delphi Film Palast, a large arthouse cinema rebuilt in 1949 during the city’s post-war renaissance, quickly found buyers.

Despite the absence of stars during the screening and in the film itself, the atmosphere that reigned in the room suggested great expectations from the public. The Invisible Zoo by Romuald Karmakar was about to have its world premiere. This three-hour, mostly wordless documentary takes you behind the scenes at Zurich Zoo.

“From the start of the project, we said to ourselves: four seasons, no comments, no additional music, no interviews in a seated position,” says Romuald Karmakar at the end of the screening.

Known in the 1990s and 2000s as one of Germany’s most daring and politically controversial directors, Romuald Karmakar has spent much of the last two decades showcasing electronic music scenes in Germany, in films such as 196 BPM (2003) or If I Think of Germany at Night (2017). Before that, he covered the most diverse topics: from Balkan mercenaries to serial child killers and cockfighting, including the speeches of Heinrich Himmler and the hijacker imam of September 11, 2001. .

His latest film should test the limits of any audience. Romuald Karmakar’s style is dry, devoid of rhetorical flourishes. The effect is reinforced thanks to a long and realistic foray.

The documentary shows, in detail, how the zoo operates: management meetings, discussions between employees, aperitifs with public donors, but also the practical work necessary to bring a place as vast and complex as this renowned park to life. worldwide.

Why Zurich Zoo?

The first question I ask the director is “Why Zurich Zoo?”, because most of his major films are set in Berlin and take a thorny aspect of German history or culture as their starting point. This is particularly the case of Manila (2000), which won the Silver Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival.

“To tell the truth, the film was prepared and financed to be shot at the Berlin Zoo, but, after ten days of filming, we stopped due to persistent and repeated obstructions from the park management,” answers Romuald Karmakar.

“The project aborted in the summer of 2018. While keeping in mind the economic pressures of small production, we analyzed the Sheridan ranking [réalisé par l’expert britannique Anthony Sheridan] relating to zoos in Europe. The top five are all in German-speaking countries: the Vienna Zoological Garden, number one, followed by Leipzig and Basel, then Zurich. I knew someone with contacts in Zurich and, through them, I obtained permission to film quite quickly. This is how we went to Zurich!”

“The only restriction I had to submit to was that I didn’t have access to the primate and elephant enclosures,” he says with a laugh. “I only found out later that it was for security reasons, because I didn’t even think to ask why at the time. When we arrived in Zurich, I was just happy to be able to shoot.”

Is there a trick to filming animals? “You have to search for the essence of each animal captured on camera. What is he looking at? What is he listening to? However, wildlife documentaries rarely use original sounds. Take the example of Planet Earth: The polar bear you see is not accompanied by the original sound of its life, its growls, its footsteps or the air. You can probably hear the sound of the production helicopter whirring overhead. We tried to do the opposite.”

While speaking, Romuald Karmakar laughs a lot, as if discovering how the film he made, in all its complexity, could be interpreted in real time. “When my editor first heard the film with synchronous sound, he said, ‘That’s incredibly loud.’ And the filmmaker adds: “In the case of Zurich Zoo, located not far from the airport, there are constant sounds of planes flying over the park.”

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Romuald Karmakar (center) at the premiere of his new film The Invisible Zoo.

©Hojabr Riahi Film and Medicine-NRW

Death of a zebra

All along The Invisible Zoo, we see the animals in their different artificial habitats. Their food is prepared, industrially divided and served in tubes and cones. Their faces are impassive. We witness their routine and, in one notable case, their death.

A long and painful scene shows the slaughter, decapitation and disembowelment of a Chapman’s zebra, before the carcass is fed to the lions. According to him, the zoo did everything to restore this animal to good health after the death of its only companion.

After searching, in vain, for another institution likely to accommodate it, the zoo made the decision to kill the animal. In this long sequence, Romuald Karmakar shows the violence necessary to maintain a place of calm and tranquility.

“There is the beauty of animals and animal iconography in our society – children’s pajamas, animals in cinema, etc. But for this ‘public’ image to remain intact, such decisions are necessary. And showing both sides is an essential part of being a filmmaker. Zebras are also codified, through films Madagascar [des dessins animés pour enfants produits par Dreamworks] notably, like beloved animals. And the one in Zurich is in good health, which makes it even weirder. This therefore raises crucial questions about human-animal relations and institutional functioning.”

Romuald Karmakar continues: “The man who shot the zebra did not want to be filmed and also did not want me to film the animal falling, at the moment of its death. I can accept and understand the first point, but I had a lot of difficulty understanding why he didn’t want me to film the dying zebra.”

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Romuald Karmakar’s team had unlimited access to Zurich Zoo, with the exception of the primate and elephant enclosures

©Pantera Film GmbH

When Covid-19 hits

“When we film in a zoo like Zurich, it is always an intervention in the daily routine of the employees, in particular the keepers,” notes Romuald Karmakar. “It’s difficult, because you have to find a way [de travailler] with the person. You meet her ten minutes before filming starts and you have to establish a rapport.”

The powerful effect of the filmmaker’s spare, deliberate style is partly manifested in the film’s final act, when Covid-19 strikes out of nowhere. The preceding 140 minutes offer no overt sign of the era in which the film was made, no anticipation of an impending pandemic that would dramatically affect the lives of the people on screen.

Romuald Karmakar gives us the spectacle of these animals locked in artificial spaces without any visitors: just empty corridors and observation platforms. Suddenly, his hyperrealistic project resembles Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot. “The monkeys don’t know why people don’t come anymore. No one can explain it to them. For them, something is just not usual; for us, neither,” relates the director.

From colonial to natural

When did zoos become invisible? “At 19^e century, most of the large zoos in Europe adopted a certain pavilion architecture resulting from the colonial heritage. But at the beginning of the 20^e century, with the Hamburg Zoo, a change in strategy took place, which I call ‘making a zoo invisible’,” explains Romuald Karmakar.

“The structure of the pavilions, the Indian temple, the Egyptian atmosphere must disappear. Zurich Zoo has some interesting enclosures that don’t have any buildings. They are completely integrated into the natural landscape. We don’t see anything, so much so that we might think we’re in the middle of the forest. The zoo doesn’t show what’s ugly. It’s trying to disappear as an institution. But as we know, anything that seems simple requires a lot of labor. This requires even more work.”

“What do you want to see during a visit to the zoo? The question is important,” he raises, before quoting a poem by the pre-Socratic natural philosopher Empedocles, which opens the film: “’We only see what we recognize’. We are part of the invisible zoo, because we decide what we want to see.”

Text reread and verified by Virginie Mangin and Eduardo Simantob, translated from English by Zélie Schaller / op

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