ZooScope

Category: Imaginary Animals: No

  • Racing Stripes. Dir. Frederik Du Chau. Warner Bros. 2005.

    Racing stripes (Frederik Du Chau 2005) is an American sports comedy which centres on the glamourous and wealthy sport of horseracing in Kentucky. However the film does this through a comedic twist. The film has a bildungsroman performance narrative and follows the journey of a young girl and her unconventional mount Stripes, a zebra. After a…

  • Over the Hedge. Dir. Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick. DreamWorks. 2006.

    After Verne, an anxious turtle, breaks through the boundary of the manicured hedge he enters a pristine garden on the periphery of a middle class suburbia. A far cry from the overgrown animal-populated wood, the suburban garden represents a natural environment controlled by humans, a place where that which is considered wild or ‘other’ is…

  • A Matter of Loaf and Death. Dir. Nick Park. BBC. 2008.

    Beloved characters Wallace and his side-kick canine Gromit return for another film, and this time they are running Top Bun, a brand new bakery. Business is booming for the duo, but a serial killer is on the loose, killing all the bakers in town. While Gromit begins to fear for the pair’s safety, Wallace is…

  • A Bug’s Life. Dir. Dave Foley. Walt Disney Pictures. 1999.

    The notion of capitalism is undeniably present in A Bug’s Life [1] and is a vehicle that allows the ants and grasshoppers to be considered anthropomorphic beings. Hence the parallel to the class system that exists in human society: ants being the underclass and grasshoppers being the bourgeoisie, exploiting the ants for theirlabour. Thus, A…

  • Baraka. Dir. Ron Frike. The Samuel Goldwyn Company. 1992.

    Ron Fricke’s 1992 documentary film Baraka highlights the darker side of human-animal relations through a sequence comparing two very similar visual images. One scene depicts a crowded subway while another shows new-born chicks on a conveyor belt, presumably being sexed and arranged for meat or egg production.

  • Bee Movie. Dir. Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith. DreamWorks. 2007.

    This textbook human thinking opens Bee Movie [2], an animation which follows the film’s aptly alliteratively named protagonist, Barry B. Benson, an aspiring bee, on his search for individuality in a conformist bee society that has worked non-stop for ‘27 million years’. Barry, disillusioned at the thought of working for the rest of his life…

  • Aladdin. Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Disney Studios. 1992.

    Ron Clements’ and John Muskers’, Aladdin (1992) [1]  follows the life of a poor street dweller and his sidekick monkey, Abu in the fictional city of Agrabah. After being coerced into entering the subterranean ‘cave of wonders’ by the villain Jafar and his accomplice parrot, Iago, Aladdin retrieves a magic lamp containing a genie. With the…

  • Au Hasard Balthazar. Dir. Robert Bresson. Cinema Ventures. 1966.

    Au Hasard Balthazar (dir. Robert Bresson, 1966) juxtaposes the human treatment of animals with animal camaraderie between different species, emphasising a human/animal divide and how we think of animals as one homogeneous group that we are not apart of, despite biological taxonomy saying otherwise.

  • Two Brothers . Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud. Universal Studios. 2004.

    ean-Jacques Annaud transports us to the richly beautiful Cambodian jungle in the early 1920s , where two tiger cubs, Sangha and Kumal, are born to their stable and loving family unit. Their playful brotherly bond creates many adventures until violence and greed removes the two from the wild and forces them into the human domain…

  • Anita and Me . Dir. Metin Hüseyin. BBC. 2002.

    Auntie Shaila and her family arrive early in the film, the last of many Indian families who have come to see Meena’s family. The scene recreates the overarching approach of the film, where humour serves to subdue and ridicule racism.