Postcards from the Zoo

I saw this film at the Berlinale film festival 2012, as part of the official Competition section. The synopsis as published by the film festival, prepared us that we would see two versions of the same Lana: first as a very young girl, and later as a young woman.

The film started with Lina as a very young girl, wandering through the woods, watching animals and their caretakers. She called for her father in the beginning, but we never saw someone acting as her father. She had to find her own way, so it seemed, in this environment, left to her fantasies.

Suddenly, without an indication that time jumped forward, Lina re-appears as a grown up woman. We see her becoming an assistant for a magician dressed as a cowboy, who suddenly and magically disappears from her life. Later on we see her at work as a masseuse at a spa.

As a bonus we got a crash course in zoology and insights in zoo internals, though I'm unsure it was intentional to educate us. While many different animals were shown, the giraffe seems to be Lana's main focus. Anyway, we now know more about giraffes than we'll ever need to know.

Nothing much happens in the sense of a plot, yet we were treated on nice views on animals, the flora in a zoo, and the playgrounds for children's entertainment. And the magician/cowboy was a nice touch to have him included in the scenario, providing for a mini-story within the film. Same, to a lesser degree, can be said about her job as a masseuse. For that reason, this film was not boring to sit through. Nevertheless, I had expected more of a dramatic development, given the announcement text. Don't expect a coherent story with head and tail; you won't get any.