Cryp­to­zoo – first-look review

In the world of Dash Shaw’s fan­tas­ti­cal ani­ma­tion, the only bound­aries are that of human imag­i­na­tion. The film is cen­tred on the premise of Cryp­to­zo­ol­o­gy, a sub­cul­ture who pre­serve the knowl­edge of folk­loric crea­tures such as the Cam­boo­di (South Amer­i­can mega worm), the Baku (a Japan­ese dream-eat­ing crea­ture) and the Gor­gon (an ancient Greek leg­end). Cryp­to­zo­ol­o­gists call these crea­tures cryp­tids; ani­mals whose exis­tence is disputed.

When Amber (Louisa Krause) and Matthew (Michael Cera) sneak off into the woods for a sex­u­al escapade they are met with a humon­gous barbed wire fence. On the oth­er side, they dis­cov­er the cryp­to­zoo; the first ever zoo to res­cue and house myth­i­cal crea­tures. It is with­in these high walls that Lauren’s (Lake Bell) ded­i­ca­tion to the pro­tec­tion of cryp­tids thrives, indebt­ed to the Baku which freed her from child­hood nightmares.

As a cryp­to­zookeep­er, Lauren’s great­est ambi­tion is bring­ing the Baku to safe­ty. She joins forces with Phoebe (Ange­li­ki Papouila), a Gor­gon (a human-pass­ing humanoid cryp­tid), who cham­pi­ons the rare crea­tures. As its ethe­re­al nar­ra­tive unfolds, Cryp­to­zoo becomes an abstract alle­go­ry of com­pas­sion and ally­ship, explor­ing the mul­ti­fac­eted per­spec­tives of ide­al­ism. With the mys­ti­cal crea­tures being hunt­ed for nefar­i­ous means, Lau­ren wran­gles with her own ideals, ask­ing whether the domes­ti­ca­tion of the cryp­tids is hav­ing the desired effect.

At times mean­der­ing and messy, Cryp­to­zoo remains nonethe­less a won­drous vision – itself a myth­i­cal crea­ture in the con­text of cin­e­ma. The vibran­cy of the ani­ma­tion is high­ly impres­sive, brought to life over five years by Shaw and ani­ma­tion direc­tor Jane Sam­bors­ki. Sam­bors­ki uses vivid colour not for nat­u­ral­ism, but to drift in and out of real­ism as the film moves between a dream state and drawn life.

The film’s pecu­liar­i­ty is exact­ly why it should be trea­sured. When Amber first scales the gates of the cryp­to­zoo she says, ​“utopias nev­er work out.” Yet embed­ded in the hand-craft­ed lan­guage of Shaw’s film is a tale that echoes beyond the walls of the cryp­to­zoo and into our own world.