Rob Munday

The one thing I’ve always loved about animation is how endless the possibilities are when making a film. I suppose in more recent times, with the development of technology and improvement of CGI, the same can almost be said with Live-Action films. However, where these films will always have some kind of limits placed on them, to me, animation is the one medium that always seems limitless. You want to make a film about the King of Halloween taking over Christmas, fine. You want to make a film about a Clownfish searching for his Clownfish son, sure. You want to make a film about one man’s struggle to secretly keep a giant rabbit in his apartment, no problem.

In Egmont Mayer’s animation, Red Rabbit, this is exactly the story the director chooses to tell. “The man lives alone in a small apartment. The little contact he had with other people has dropped to zero since the rabbit appeared. Every attempt to get the rabbit out of his apartment has failed and since he is not sure whether or not pets are allowed in the building, he does not let anybody enter his apartment”—(via egmontmayer.com)

Mayer’s student film is a beautifully paced, stylistic piece, where no dialogue is needed to convey the emotions of the main characters. Tensions and relationships are slowly and thoughtfully developed throughout the film and we seem to know exactly what the characters are thinking and feeling without anyone ever having to speak a word. Even though as a viewer you really feel the loneliness and isolation of the characters, there is still a certain warmth and touching poetry to this tale.

Rabbits seem to be constantly appearing in films and throughout film history have been used to symbolise many different things. There are many different theories as to what the giant rabbit in Harvey symbolizes, or what Frank the rabbit in Donnie Darko represents. I’m not quite sure what the giant rabbit in Mayer’s Red Rabbit symbolizes, but the one thing I am sure of, is that this is one of the best animations you’ll see all year.

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