Sundance, day four: A director you should know

Earlier today, I spoke with Robinson Devor, whose documentary “Zoo” is one of the most provocatively made movies here. He’s affable and forthcoming, intelligent and tall. Based now out of Seattle, Devor is also a director whose movies – 2000’s “The Woman Chaser” and 2005’s “Police Beat – deserved bigger audiences. He told me he wants more people to see his movies but is rightly unwilling to compromise himself for commercial success.

“Zoo,” which the increasingly fearless Thinkfilm will release later this year, is Devor's first documentary feature. It uses dramatic reenactment and a degree of impressionistic narrative license to reconstruct events surrounding a Washington man who died not long after having intercourse with a horse. The movie is less concerned with the sensationalism of the sex, and more interested in the bond between the men who had it. There is the haunting deployment of audio interviews played over the reenactments, which include some of the men playing themselves. (They call themselves “zoo” in the way someone attracted to both genders would say “bi.”)

The film balances morality, philosophy, and shame with a kind of sympathy for both the men and the animals. It’s an immersive feat of filmmaking. It was extra-immersive for me, since I had to watch the whole thing sitting in the aisle about 15 feet from the screen. But as a testament to how well made “Zoo” in, I didn’t notice my heinie was brutally sore until it was over.