ZooScope

  • Jojo Rabbit. Dir. Taika Waititi. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2019.

    Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019) follows a young German boy growing up during World War Two. During a sequence depicting Jojo’s education, a rabbit is used as a symbol of morality to train a group of Hitler Youth. The children unanimously agree that they would kill for Germany – this is then put to the…

  • True Grit. Dir. Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. Paramount Pictures. 2010.

    Although the tone of True Grit (2010) is primarily light-hearted and comedic, the narrative explores dark themes of grief and revenge. After her father is murdered, fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) embarks on a journey to ensure her father’s killer is hanged for his crime, enlisting the help of infamously violent and self-serving U.S. Marshal…

  • Okja. Dir. Bong Joon-ho. Netflix. 2017.

    Okja[1] is a South-Korean/American film about a girl called Mija and her best friend, a ‘super pig’ called Okja. When Okja gets taken by the company who made her, the Mirando corporation, Mija leaves her idyllic mountain-top home and goes on a dark adventure, determined to find Okja and bring her back home. At the…

  • Pet Sematary. Dir. Mary Lambert. Paramount Pictures. 1989.

    Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary is a horror film that supplants the blood-thirsty killer with a household pet – one which becomes increasingly unfamiliar as the film progresses. Aided by a combination of practical and special effects, the Creeds’ ghostly cat Church transitions into an object of the uncanny, and thus…

  • Mrs. Doubtfire. Dir. Chris Columbus. 20th Century Fox. 1993.

    In this family comedy directed by Chris Columbus, Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) uses cartoon animals to reflect Daniel’s anarchic behaviour, letting the audience stipulate as to whether he is the antagonist or protagonist in this story of conflicting parenting styles. From the film’s opening scene, Daniel’s conscientious nature is divulged in an over the top performance…

  • Sorry to Bother You. Dir. Boots Riley. Annapurna Pictures. 2018.

    Boots Riley’s debut feature has been praised for its portrayal of the callous nature of capitalism in modern America. The overarching message throughout is that the efficiency of the labourer is paramount to economic success and is valued more than human life, with this ideology being brought to life with the Equisapians, a half-human/half-horse hybrid,…

  • Brother Bear. Dir. Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker. Walt Disney Pictures. 2003.

    Brother Bear works to trouble the relationship between humans and bears through destabilising the idea that bears are inherently threatening and monstrous. The children’s animation follows Kenai, a young human boy who is transformed into a bear by spirits after killing a bear to avenge his brother’s death. Within this scene, Blaise and Walker use…

  • American Honey. Dir. Andrea Arnold. 2016.

    Andrea Arnold’s films are renowned for their nuanced focus upon human behaviour. However, as Michael Lawrence recognises in his analysis of her 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Arnold ‘privileges the natural environment and its non-human inhabitants as characters in their own right’.[1] This scene is no different, as even within the interior setting Arnold utilises…

  • Coraline. Dir. Henry Selick. Focus Features. 2009.

    Coraline is a stop-motion animated movie, based on Neil Geiman’s novel with the same title, featuring mice, rats, insects, dogs and a cat. Of all these animals, the nameless black cat (Keith David) is most intriguing. One could say that the cat plays such a role in the story that we could extrapolate it to…

  • A Dog’s Purpose. Dir. Lasse Hallström. Universal Pictures. 2017.

    Lasse Hallström’s film A Dog’s Purpose presents the relationship between a dog and its first owner, Ethan Montgomery (Dennis Quaid as Ethan’s adult version). The intriguing question “what is the real purpose of a dog” becomes for Bailey (Josh Gad) the triggering of a number of adventures which results in the last sequence where the…

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