The Zookeeper 2001

In an unnamed Eastern European country, soldiers forcefully round up the villagers, and ten-year-old Zioig is torn away from his mother. While being transported in a truck, Zioig’s father (unmentioned here) tells him that he is a man now and that grown men don’t cry, even as the soldiers kill the men and Zioig somehow manages to slip away and escape.

Meanwhile in the capital, the city’s fate weighs heavy on Ludovic, Sam Neill, a former Interior Ministry official and longtime Communist party member who now works at a zoo. He receives a letter from his estranged daughter Anna in Paris, who wants to repair their fractured relationship. With the city under siege, Ludovic volunteers to help the Indian veterinarian, Om Puri, tend to the animals as they face rationing and scarce supplies. The daily rhythm of the zoo becomes a fragile beacon amid the chaos, and Ludovic forms a quiet, disciplined bond with the creatures around him, especially a female Capuchin monkey named Luisa.

Across the turmoil, Zioig is picked up by a truckload of United Nations peacekeepers, but he slips away in the night, stealing two boxes of supplies while the guards sleep. Back at the capital’s checkpoint, Ludovic crosses paths with Dragov, Ulrich Thomsen, the militia’s blunt leader. Although Ludovic lacks proper papers, Dragov lets him pass out of a shared sense of kinship, a reminder of how quickly survival can hinge on small, human connections. With his new surroundings, Ludovic moves into the zoo and grows closer to the Veterinarian as they strive to keep the animals alive on the dwindling rations. A bond forms between Ludovic and a curious capuchin monkey, Luisa, who becomes a quiet source of hope in the beleaguered enclosure.

During a tense visit to the wolves’ pen, Ludovic encounters the orphaned Zioig and warns the boy to leave, sensing danger in the chaos that surrounds them. Yet Ludovic’s empathy deepens as he befriends the Vet, sharing a moment of resolve when the Vet reminds him that “good men do the right thing in bad times.” The following morning, Dragov and his militia arrive again at the zoo to seize the domestic animals for food, and Ludovic’s protest is met with the hard-edged reality of war. Dragov’s men arrest the Vet for his race, and Ludovic is forced to watch as his ally is taken away, left to face the consequences alone.

The Vet is found strung up outside, and Ludovic buries him with a quiet elation of duty and grief. Zioig returns, forcing his way into Ludovic’s cabin with a wound on his leg, and the boy’s presence compels Ludovic to act with mercy. He tends to the wound with antibiotics, then tells the boy that he must leave the following day because his staying would endanger them all. Yet when Ankica, Zioig’s mother, arrives and is brought into their orbit, Ludovic’s resolve softens, and he allows the pair to stay.

Ankica’s return brings a heavy past into the present. She reveals, through distress and murmurs, a prison-camp history in which she endured horrific violence, urging Ludovic to be kind to her son to help him survive. While Ankica reads Ludovic’s diaries, Dragov’s forces return to seize the zoo’s animals for food, and Ludovic hides Ankica in a barn beneath a tense watch. To keep them safe, he distracts Dragov’s men by presenting a lion cub as a mascot, a small act of subversion that buys precious time.

After the militiamen depart, Ankica’s presence lingers as a kiss of gratitude, and Ludovic finds solace in comforting the troubled Zioig, who remains haunted by the animals’ suffering. A fragile rapprochement forms between Ankica and Ludovic, and they begin to share a growing tenderness that stands in stark contrast to the war raging outside. The next morning, Ludovic faces a brutal moral choice as the body of the militiaman Slavko is fed to a lion, a stark image of the lengths to which survival demands.

That night, the zoo’s monkey house is hit by artillery, and the ensuing fire, smoke, and fear claim the lives of the monkeys. Ankica’s plea for a safer path strengthens their bond, and she urges Ludovic to leave the zoo with Zioig and her son. The dawn comes with a quiet farewell to the animals, but tragedy remains on the horizon: Ankica is killed by one of Dragov’s snipers. Ludovic tends to her body as UN peacekeepers begin to evacuate the city, and together with Zioig, they bury Ankica before departing the zoo with the orphaned wolf cub in their care.

In the end, the trio—Ludovic, Zioig, and the survivor of Ankica’s love—steps into an uncertain future, carrying the weight of loss, the memory of kindness, and the fragile hope that even in the harshest times, humanity can endure and protect those who cannot protect themselves.