Zoo

In the summer of 2005, the Seattle Times reported that a local man had died of internal injuries after having sex with a horse on a farm in the rural town of Enumclaw, WA—a story of fatal bestiality that spread like wildfire across the Internet. As conceived by Seattle-based director Robinson Devor and writer/researcher Charles Mudede, the semi-documentary Zoo examines the secret community of "zoophiles" (or as they refer to themselves, "zoos"), who share a common bond of taboo sexual behavior. Zoo attempts to present the potentially shocking subject matter through the prism of artistic contemplation, resulting in a film that boasts a visual poetry of sorts (Seth Kirby's cinematography is nothing if not beautiful), but also one in which the filmmakers remain frustratingly and timidly detached from their subject, as if any attempt to truly understand the zoophiles (a few of whom appear here as themselves) would be construed as an endorsement of sexual deviancy. Ultimately, far too many relevant questions remain unanswered because Zoo adopts a meditative rather than journalistic approach to exploring a taboo subject. Optional. (J. Shannon)