The sex scene in the documentary Zoo, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance film
festival, lasts less than 10 seconds. The grainy footage follows lush shots of
nature set to moody music and a thoughtful voiceover discussion of the nature of
love. Drinks are mixed. Stories are shared. Both parties appear to consent. The
fleeting seconds would seem unlikely to raise an eyebrow among the liberal
audience of film lovers who rush to Sundance each year in search of edgy,
independent fare. The thing is, the scene stars a man and a horse.
Unsettling precisely because it is more atmospheric than graphic, more
romantic than journalistic, Zoo examines the culture of zoophiles, people with
an erotic attraction to animals. Seattle filmmaker Robinson Devor tells the true
story of “Mr. Hands,” a 45-year-old man who died shortly after being anonymously
dropped at an emergency room in rural Washington in 2005. Police investigating
the case followed clues to a nearby horse farm, where they found buckets of
videos of the man and others having sex with Arabian stallions. Mr. Hands’ cause
of death was a perforated colon. Because bestiality wasn’t illegal in Washington
State at the time, no charges were filed, but the scandal made national news.
Via reenactments with actors and voiceover interviews with the dead
man’s zoophile friends, Devor picks up where the news stories left off. “A lot
of people advised us not to do the film, artistically and from a business
standpoint,” says Devor, whose last movie, Police Beat, was a little-seen but
critically lauded film in Sundance’s 2005 dramatic competition. “But filmmakers
investigate all sorts of subcultures and individuals who are clearly more evil
than these.”
Maybe so, but Zoo, which has notes of Werner Herzog’s 2005 documentary
Grizzly Man, caused festival goers to launch into heated debates on the shuttle
buses and in the cafes of Park City about such unlikely subjects as whether a
stallion can actually give consent and precisely how he might do so. Taxi
drivers in town asked their passengers, “Have you seen the horse sex movie?” At
a Q&A following one screening, the Seattle actor who plays Mr. Hands, John
Paulsen, who is a priest, admitted that after hearing he had gotten the role, he
wasn’t quite sure he wanted it.
Devor studiously avoids judging the men in his film, depicting them as
regular guys who hold down regular jobs and attend regular parties. No talking
heads appear on camera to explain the psychological sources of zoophilia. The
closest thing Zoo has to a moral guide is the woman charged with finding a new
home for the dead man’s horse, and even she, by the end, is compassionate.
“Michael Moore’s first movie was about a group of Nazis and they were having a
picnic,” says Devor. “The left was very p—– off at him because he didn’t
clearly say, ‘This is bad.’ I don’t think art is supposed to give messages. It
can be enigmatic and push buttons.”
Asked who his audience might be when Zoo is released by ThinkFilm later
this year, Devor rattles off an eclectic group: “Crazy art house lovers.
18- to 24-year-old guys. Conservatives who would condemn it.” OK, so it’s not the
same crowd who will be racing the see Shrek the Third, but, as a friend of
Devor’s told him, ‘Finally you made a commercial movie.'” Those curious about
zoophilia may be disappointed by the, er, logistical questions that Zoo fails
answer. But it won’t be hard to find people curious about zoophila. You did read
this far, didn’t you?
See pictures of animals that can think.
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