GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 4/26/07)

This is the movie which, when it played at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, moved the conservative commentator and former film reviewer Rod Dreher to despair thusly: "I probably have, re: fundamental morals, more in common with the first 500 people I'd meet in Cairo, Damascus, or Tehran than the first 500 people I'd meet in Park City, UT, during festival time." And Dreher was just working from a review of the picture! People who actually sit through this film are probably less likely to work themselves into such a froth of indignation. Still, this peculiar hybrid of documentary and dramatic film, inspired by and about a notorious 2005 incident in which an animal, um, "lover" in Washington state (where there are no laws proscribing bestiality) died of a perforated colon after attempting sex with a stallion, will likely test the patience of even those who take Terence's motto "nothing human is alien to me" very much to heart.

Stringing together beautiful, lyrically matched images of Mount Rainier, the Seattle skyline, and Enumclaw, the town in which the incident took place, director Devor (whose prior feature, Police Beat, I much prefer to this) eases the viewer into the world of self-styled zoophiles, or "zoos," as the fellows (all of the "zoos" interviewed here are men) call themselves. A trifle mixed up, they are. Constructing the narrative (made up mostly of dramatic reenactments, although given the static nature of many of the scenes, the word "dramatic" is pushing it) obliquely, Devor and co-writer Charles Mudede weave in the thread concerning the individual referred to as "Mr. Hands" into the film almost casually. This is the victim, as it happens. His fate comes to light as Devor lets in some of the media static that attended it; highlighting the shouting of Rush Limbaugh here kind of stacks a very particular deck, given that there are people out there who can make the case that zoophilia is in fact ethically and morally, well, wrong, far more calmly and cogently than he.

Devor and Mudede's intentions (insofar as they can be gleaned) notwithstanding, many of the "zoos" are neither compelling, sympathetic, nor even coherent. "Just irritates me, thinkin' about it..." grouses the man who persuaded "Mr. Hands" to, um, make it down to the ranch on what turned out to be the night of his death. It irritates you? Hey buddy, imagine how the dude with the perforated colon feels! Shortly thereafter, another "zoo" makes his case for bestiality: "You're connecting with another intelligent being who is very happy to participate, be involved..." Um, can you prove that, pal? He continues, "You're not gonna be able to ask it about the latest Madonna album..." and his disdain on pronouncing the word "Madonna" is palpable. Now I've heard everything — invoking the worthlessness of Madonna in order to make a brief for bestiality. I think even a cultural conservative like Rod Dreher would admit that's unfair to Madonna.

— Glenn Kenny