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Bunny and the Bull

Directed by Paul King, DVD September 15

Reviewed by Joshua Maule

10 Sep 2010

11:22am Friday, 10th September 2010

Pinning down Bunny and Bull isn't quite what one is meant to do. Think cult movie. Think 'Theatre of the Absurd'. Think awkward flatmates (Flight of the Conchords, but weirder) and you'll be on the right track...

Kind of.

Capturing something of the insular stench of the human experience - as so much British comedy tries to do - this feature from the director of the Mighty Boosh isn't likely to be everyone's cup of tea. In fact, it's more a cup of something disgusting that you drink while simultaneously smirking and wincing.

Some of the content and themes are intensely sinister (gags about bestiality for instance). And there is a general senselessness to the whole "story". (I say "story" because it's more an imaginative muddle than anything reminiscent of a story).

A small, depressing-yet-organised apartment is the main setting and brings with it Noirish grimness in a 21st century kind of way. Brightly coloured, cartoonish scenes occur as flashbacks and memories of the outside world in the mind of the main character, Stephen (Edward Hogg).

The apartment personifies Stephen's paranoia; the suggestion being that his principled ordered approach to life has left him traumatised at the unpredictability of the real world. As such, Stephen is as trapped in his head as he is in his living room.

The shyness and naivety of Stephen alongside his reckless companion Bunny (Simon Farnaby) makes for an ongoing character clash all too reminiscent of domineering relationships in the real world. It is a relationship that leads to Stephen's mental demise.

Perhaps the most poignant line in the film is Stephen's oft repeated lament at the extremity of his friend's behaviour: "Let's just all do what we want, shall we?" It's a tragic line often shouted in desperation by a character who finds himself in the midst of near-anarchic situations.

On the one hand Bunny and the Bull seems to be challenging rationality and order - best illustrated as Stephen's shelf of labelled folders is torn down by Bunny. On the flipside though - due to its style and absurdist tone - everything about the film is hard to trust. Is there any point watching a film with a critical mind if rationality and order are being attacked, both in the film's style and it's message? Maybe not.

But then, by making viewers ask: "What?!" Bunny and the Bull at least reminds us of the kind of world God has created - one that does make sense. The viewer who watches and says: "Yep! That's the way things are," is the one who should be most worried. Ultimately, that person would live in a different world - one of their own creation - a reality of suppression and destruction in every sense.