Film Comment: Rabbit

This perverse (extremely perverse) little nine minute film is one I know you'll probably never see, so I'm doing no no harm in including spoilers in this comment. Rabbit (2005) is a limited animation film illustrated like a children's picture book with the names of each object printed directly under the object: ie. "rabbit," "flower," "house," "boy," and "girl," etc. You get the idea, it looks like an old fashioned British children's reading primer. The British director, Run Wrake, used educational stickers he found in a junk shop.

A sweet little boy and girl are playing in a garden when the girl decides to cut open a passing rabbit. The boy uses a cricket bat to whack the heads of several animals. Inside one animal, the children find a strange little animated idol (a demon?) which turns insects into jewels. The children come up with a plan; distract the idol with a tasty bowl of jam, kill animals to attract insects which the idol will turn into jewels, and the children get rich. They set their plan in motion and drive off to get more jam. The idol has other, deadly, ideas. The children end up eaten by insects.

This bizarre film was nominated for a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award and it deserved it. It speaks none too subtly about animal cruelty, consumerism, greed, corruption, and hypocrisy (false innocence). As seen by Christian eyes, it is an allegory about the dangers of consorting with evil and demonstrates graphically that death really is the result (wages} of sin.

For those who wish to see the film, it is available from Netflix in the compilation entitled Cinema 16: Disc 2 (European Short Films).