Bunny and the Bull

[themomentstealer]

I have three reviews (I feel so iffy about calling them that. They're not nearly as professional as reviews ought to be, because most of the time it's just ranting. Maybe I'll just call them opinions) half-written out.

They've been put on hold for some reason but I'm not entirely sure what's stopping me from finishing them and putting them up here. One's for the second episode of Misfits and the other is about the ninth episode of Community, both of which are shows that you ought to be watching.

I could go and finish them up (I will, eventually. Things just keep getting in the way, like taking the dog to the vet, or my external hard drive frizzing up on me oh god it still hurts my heart). Or I could go and maybe type up another thousand words for NaNo (haha, as if it happens just like that), but instead I decided that I'd like to write about this absolutely wonderful movie I've just watched, while the love is still fresh.

It's called Bunny and the Bull, and it's brilliant to look at and laugh at. I label it to be Highly Recommended, for what it's worth.

I warn you, this may get a little long because the story is amazing and hard not to get into with great detail.

You don't need to read the review. What I think about the movie doesn't matter -- the screencaps do. A picture is worth a thousand words, and all that jazz. I just think that you ought to click on the cut to look at the pictures. This, ladies and gentlemen, is production design at its finest (and possibly scroogiest).

First off, and it really does require its own mention, the production design is insanely good. The first few minutes alone are kind of my own dream opening sequence, with warm light bathing the artifacts of Stephen Turnbull's life in a golden wash of Old Timey-ness. It's got animation (there's this brilliant horse-race animation made of paper cutouts, which I drooled all over), stop-motion animation, split-screen montages, and chroma galore. This film was probably a post-production VFX wet dream.

As for the storyline, well, if this call comes straight from the mind Paul King, the man behind The Mighty Boosh. How could it not be hilarious and surreal and strangely sad all at the same time? There are no musical numbers, though. Sad.

Look at that! I want to live in this set. Except maybe I could do without the vials of urine.

The film takes place in a world of paper cutouts and cardboard boxes, where the walls are made of stacks of books and boxes of old bits and ends. It also takes place in the main character's memories, which are just as amazingly home-made. Fair grounds are made of clockwork gears and the streets of Spain are is maze of stark lopsidedness and would have made any diehard German Expressionist proud. Having a weakness for cardboard cities and cotton ball clouds, I would love to live in his head.

It would have been so much fun to shoot this. I want to do something like this, except Polaroids are expensive and kinda hipster.

Reminiscent of The Science of Sleep? Maybe, I wouldn't know. Haven't watched it, but I did see the trailer, and I probably would enjoy it if I did see it. I think, though, that this kind of style is a result of the director's own history of style -- he's the wonderful man who gave us The Mighty Boosh, and that show had a shamelessly homemade flair of its own.

If you're wondering, that's a crab on top of the car. Captain Crab, to be precise.

Taking a moment to talk about the title -- I like how it plays around with their names and their roles and personalities, switching things around just to be ironic. Bunny is the more aggressive character, while Stephen Turnbull tends to take a backseat to Bunny's mad schemes. It also could be taken to refer to the event that caused Stephen to alter his life so drastically (which was shot so well!).

Now, for the plot.

This is the story of Stephen Turnbull, a shy young man who lives an orderly life of seclusion and routine in his flat. The routines can get a little weird -- among the more notable ones are how he files his used dental floss and categorizes the pH levels of his urine, which is not something I've ever heard anyone to do for domestic reasons.

One day, something interrupts his routine, and it should; otherwise we wouldn't have a movie. No one makes movies about life as usual, unless you're an assassin and stopping a terrorist plot with a bullet to a terrorist's brain is usual, but most of us are regular schmucks whose lives as usual are entirely average and not that exciting.

So when Stephen's hermetically sealed stash of vegetarian lasagna is invaded by rats, he orders out to Captain Crab and thus triggers the rushing in of memories. His best friend Bunny, who is a compulsive gambler and seriously needs a haircut, wins him money at the races and they go off to visit the rest of Europe to get Stephen's mind off his recent heartbreak and his dedication to take a year off sex. They go around, vising ridiculous places like the National Eyeglass Museum of the Netherlands, the German Cookbook Museum, and National Shoe Museum of Poland -- because Stephen's the one making the decisions and his interests are charmingly boring like that.

When Bunny takes over the vacation, they wind up in the company of Spanish girl Eloisa who wants to leave Poland and return to Spain in time for the fiesta. Because Stephen is instantly smitten, Bunny proceeds to win him a car by eating a buttload of crabs so they can drive her to Spain.

Stephen, however, is what we'd call chicken, and has no idea how to woo Eloisa. Along the way, they steal a stuffed bear from a hotel and Bunny proceeds to sleep with Eloisa. Not cool, but there's this hilarious scene where Stephen haplessly offers to do Bunny's laundry and gives him condoms from his (get this) portable condom dispenser. Yes, that's right. Portable. It goes on his belt loop.

I shit you not.

So anyway, journeying onwards, Stephen and Bunny run into Atila the Dog-Fancying Russian, played hilariously by Julian Barratt. He gets jealous a little when one of the dogs likes Stephen too much, but who is he to stand in the way of true love?

The clockwork carnival. Gorgeous, but apparently, not too safe.

Eventually, after visiting a clockwork carnival (gorgeous idea, btw), they make it to Spain, where the festival is on in full swing and we meet Eloisa's brother, the retarded ex-bullfighter (ex- because he fell into a coffee table, oy) Javier, played by Noel Fielding (♥), our favorite modern dandy.

Things come to a head when Bunny, who has it in his head to become a bullfighter, steals the clothes of the legendary bullfighter and loses it to a fat gambling Gypsy. Confrontation between best friends occurs and Bunny spills that he slept with the girl who originally broke Stephen's heart, and Stephen proceeds go sleep with Eloisa, who actually liked him back. I don't know, don't ask me.

When Eloisa finds out about the toreador outfit, though, it's over for them and both friends are on the train back to England. Midway through the journey of life, however, Bunny decides to bullfight to prove that he's not completely useless, and stops the train. They get off, he bullfights, and at first it is glorious.

I sort of take back what I said about homemade things. I don't think you can make this bull in an arts and crafts class, unless you kids are really hardcore.

Then he gets gored and dies. Maaajor spoiler, so I hope you knew what you were getting into when you got to this point in your life.

All of this, all of it occurs in Stephen's head as he goes around his apartment trying desperately to stop remembering these events. The transitions between the real world and his memories are seamless and brilliant (I say that word a lot but it fits) -- Stephen climbs out of briefcases and finds doors in his bed. Bunny appears in his apartment to goad him into remembering Europe, and in the end convinces him to go outside and live his life -- and most importantly, to call Eloisa.

I know it sounds corny, but it was a really great ending. I'd have thought that we'd get maybe a screwball kind of ending, the way we usually do with episodes of The Mighty Boosh, but this was sort of sad and sweet at the same time. Bunny is still incorrigibly vulgar and loose with his money, even as a ghost, but he genuinely does care about Stephen.

It's kind of nice.

I wonder if this is a thing with me. Amelie, my Favorite Movie Of All Time (that is how I describe it. You can hear the caps when I do, no lie), is about a painfully shy girl who lives more in her fantasies than in real life. The Bull and the Bunny -- another film about a near recluse who lives more in his mind than in the world. My thesis? Kind of the same, only it's everyone else in the world who's not living in it. In the end, the protagonists always learn to open up the windows and step outside.

God, I hope that's not a sign.