Crocodile Nest
Germany / Colombia
9'
- Synopsis
- Curatorial presentation
The tropical hall of the Düsseldorf zoo is altered by the encounter between a woman and the crocodile keeper. While observing and being observed by crocodiles, they talk about family memories with reptiles in Colombia, ghosts and the zoo’s history.
In CROCODILE NEST, a vividly descriptive voice-over narration transforms the portrait of a zoo and botanical garden into an intimate exploration of desire: the animals’ behaviour is mirroring the narrator’s attraction to one of the employees. The space of the garden becomes an external projection of their inner emotional spaces – a place that as much sexy as somewhat dark, creating an interesting tension between the eminently artificial environment of zoos and the human social conventions that constrain our libidinal impulses, as if everything were about to burst from its (apparently) controlled surface. The result is a sensual, delicate, but also incisive film about the fragile boundaries between the “animalistic” and the “human.” (Flavia Dima)
