Corona Cork Film Festival

A horse is a horse, of course - unless it’s the one at the centre of Zoo. In 2005 a Seattle man died as a result of a perforated colon, due to his having intimate relations with an Arabian stallion. An investigation
was launched and a strange sub-culture was unearthed. A horse ranch near the sleepy town of Enumclaw was revealed to be a haven for ‘zoophiles’. However, since bestiality wasn’t a crime in the state of Washington, no charges were filed against these men.

Robinson Devor tracked down members of this community on-line. Understandably none of them wished to be interviewed on camera but from the interviews conducted, a picture emerges of a solipsistic collection of outsiders who find ways of rationalizing impulses that have taboo connotations. While the lurid details of the case were grist to the mill of a sensationalist media, Zoo takes a sober view, eschewing titillation in favour of an impressionistic and poetic approach to the subject.

Through a hypnotic blend of original reporting, staged re-enactment, testimony of involved parties… Zoo doesn’t tell a story so much as summon an obscure psychosexual atmosphere and drift on its currents. Beyond non-judgmental, it’s liberated from the norm in every sense; the wilfully poetic form is at least as provocative
as the sordid content. - Village Voice