"The Folly of a Few Can Taint the Lives of Many."

There is something that draws me to old theaters.  The type of theater that has been around for ages.  I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that there are many of them where I grew up.  In fact, there are only two facilities that can be called recent in the whole county, and one of them is even at least 6 years old or more.  It must be the inherent memories of those theaters that keeps me seeking older and older buildings.  Art Decco, ancient seats, single to three screen boxes.  Watching a film in a building that is as old as film itself.

I walked into the New Beverly Cinema and that feeling of nostalgia came back to me.  With it's gray, blue, and red color configuration, old seats, lack of stadium set up, and it's single screen.  You can't help but feel the venue's history, regardless of knowing that it's been open since the 70s.  You don't get that at these run of the mill multiplexes who aim to squeeze as much money as quickly as possible out of a print and chuck it on down the line like yesterdays wank towel.

The New Beverly specializes in themed double features, as anyone who has been there can attest to, and retrospectives, but once in a while something truly special comes along to this little revitalized building.  I got to experience that tonight with Rie Rasmussen's feature debut Human Zoo.

The film was paired with Luc Besson's Angel-A a film that Rasmussen had a starring role in.  What I did not realize upon attending this screening, which happened to be the last of a four night run, was that Human Zoo, until now, has never screened in America to date.

The film starts off with a bang, well, a scream to be exact, but it immediately sucks the viewer into a tense and gritty world.  Cross cutting between modern day Marseille, France and Kosovo/Belgrade, Serbia, the film tells the tale of Adria, an Albanian woman who is rescued by a charming Serbian sociopath  during the midst of the the 1998 conflict in the region.

Through the narrative we see how the violence of Adria's past affects her in the present day, reflecting that the borders of countries are merely cages to a larger "human zoo."  This was the intention of the director and she hits the mark pretty hard.  Past reflected in cold blue tones while Present is much warmer and hopeful, although the two collide closer to the end of the film.

At the beginning I found myself turned off by the music choices (she chooses a few rather blunt metaphorical rock songs pertaining to some scenes), but the longer the film played on I couldn't help but become more and more completely absorbed into the story.  The film is NC-17/Unrated probably more due to graphic sexual content than violence (although there is far more violence presence than there is sex) but once again, to me, MPAA ratings don't mean a damn thing when pertaining to the validity of a story.

If you're even a little bit familiar with Rie Rasmussen, you know that she wears many hats.  She's a writer, actress, model, and director.  In this film, she wears three of those hats, starring as the main character Adria, without pulling any punches and showing no fear.  It's a difficult metaphor to show and she drew heavily on personal experience.  Adria's first love, Srdjan Vasiljevic, played by the show stealing Nikola Djuriko, is a predatory individual who opens up a world of mixed morals and violence that affect her deeply for the rest of her life.

Through all the bad choices made in her youth, Adria is drawn into a situation in which she is able to finally atone for past mistakes, and find a healthy love, but not without a price.  What struck me the most about the film is how it reflects the duality of human existence.  On one hand we witness the incredible capability of sadistic behavior drawn out by violence and strife while in the other we hold the tenderness of true love.

Rasmussen seems to be very interested in finding out what it is that makes human's prone to make violent choices and to seek injury and death upon one another.  Her next film Beyond Good and Evil, a biopic about Richard Ramirez, aims to take a further look at this theme.

(unfortunately there is no trailer with English subtitles)

Hopefully, Human Zoo will receive further notice.  Until then if you want to see the film you'll have to keep your eyes trained for screenings at retro theaters, or buy a foreign DVD and hope for subtitles.