Zoo in Budapest

The extreme naivete of the story and the characters led me to walk out on this film 20 years ago. Now, seeing it again, the delicacy and charm of the settings, the photography, the detail and care with which the imaginary world of the zoo and its visitors is created all engender my respect, if not real enthusiasm. The opening sequence, particularly, (isn't that so often true of early thirties films?) is a bravura combination of moving camera, imaginative sets, and crowd handling to create a sense of a time and place that may never have existed, but should have. The romance of the two lost souls is charming but just a little precious. The pandemonium of the escaped animals at the finale has some well edited, thrilling footage and is a satisfying conclusion to a story about characters who have no place in the real world and for whose situation it was hard to see any satisfactory resolution. As other viewers have commented here, this IS a unique film, with a unified artistic sensibility, and deserves a look by anyone at all interested in films of the early thirties.