Zoology

Zoologiya

IVAN I. TVERDOVSKY
Russia, France, Germany, 2016
87 minutes, Color
Official website

Winner of the special jury prize at the 2016 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Zoology tells a tall tale of individual transformation. On the shores of Russia's Black Sea, middle-aged zoo administrator Natasha (Natalia Pavlenkova) endures bitchy co-workers and lives a modest life with her religious mother and sickly cat. Complaining of lower back pain, she visits a doctor, who gives the area a cursory inspection before referring her to an attractive young x-ray technician, Peter (Dmitri Groshev), who becomes the second person to see that Natalia has grown a fleshy, twitchy tail. He takes it all in stride, however, and the two begin dating. Natalia soon blossoms into a confident, attractive woman who dares to be different. The world being what it is, however, even such a uniquely prompted good thing can't last. Director Ivan I. Tverdovsky's odd parable defies easy categorization and isn't soon forgotten.—Eddie Cockrell

In Russian with English subtitles