The Big Animal

2000 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A camel wanders into the front yard of a lonely Polish married couple. They adopt the big animal. The other townspeople react negatively; they alienate, exploit, threaten, hate on, etc. Eventually, there's unwanted groping and/or fondling of the camel. Oh, snap! The man ignores it all, loves his camel (appropriately), and plays his clarinet.

Nice little movie, beautifully shot and well acted. Especially brilliant is the camel in a tour de force performance. It's the best performance by a camel that I've seen since the defecating camel at the end of W. Herzog's Even Dwarves Started Small. Allegoric, symbolic, metaphoric, or whatever, this works as entertainment but also as a brief philosophical statement, almost like a cinematic haiku. So simple and so much more beautiful because of it.