Bunny e o Touro

This film is definitely not for everyone, a real love it or hate it. It is a little surreal but at its heart, its a nice little story of friendship.In short, an agoraphobic man tries to work up the courage to leave his house. Much of the film is his memories of a road trip he took with his best friend. I guess bunny and the bull can be categorised as a comedy, but the humour is mild and a little dark. For me the unique element to this film is the quirky cinematography separating memories from reality. The final five minuets of this film are well worth waiting for. This movie is without doubt a one off and very British. There is no guarantee you will enjoy this film......but watch it anyway! (Its only 100 mins of your life)

What makes this film absolutely sublime is the lingering melancholy - faint yet stubbornly persistent - ubiquitous through all the quirky, surreal, and comical sequences. It's never self-indulgent or over-sentimental. All elements, be it emotions, performances, sets, character development, or animation, are well-controlled and contained as a proper English would have it; yet it's radical, outrageous, bold, and sometimes uncomfortably daring. Elegance rises through vulgarity, and (almost unbearable) sadness screams silently. This film is unique, delightful, touching, funny, and yes, wicked. It's not Boosh but fans or otherwise shall be pleasantly surprised.

Probably one of the most anticipated movies of the year for me. The trailer really didn't do the movie justice. The story is essentially an adventure/drama (with a few comedy touches) but there's no denying that it's marginally darker than pretty much anything from the Mighty Boosh (if that's what you're expecting). The movie's visuals have pretty much been mentioned in every review, and they're are a very important part of the movie: fantastical, naive, fairytale-like, psychedelic. The movie never really lapses into reality for longer than a few minutes, which really plays into King's style of directing. The lead characters are really charming and believable, but the writing, especially the dialog was really lacking. It's almost impossible not to compare King's writing to Barrat/Fielding's because of the nature of the film and many characters being played by the cast of the show and it really doesn't compare in my opinion. However it's still a really touching and enjoyable film that has some of the most inventive visuals I have ever seen.

Firstly this isn't a Mighty Boosh film and secondly this isn't a comedy, yes it has some funny moments, but it's more of a drama. Quirkily telling the story of a road trip across Europe by friends Bunny and Stephen the action is told through a series of lo-fi set pieces which is a heady blend of Gilliam, Gondry and even Oliver Postgate. There is a real sense of a hands on glue and scissors approach. This comes across in the film as the attention to detail in the sets often threatens to overshadow the actors but it's the central friendship which is at the core of the film that keeps the fantasy in check. Grounded in a reality that most people should be able to recognise the story is at times a heartbreaking flashback to misspent youth and the bonds, no matter how strange, we form as humans. It's an age old story of boy meets girl, girl meets boy's best friend etc but the way the story unfolds with the aid of the animation gives it a fresh lease of life, its surreal and weird but at the same time charming and real. A series of cameos from three fifths of the Boosh are a little light relief in what turns out to be quite a dark tale but it's really Simon Farnaby as the lovable rogue Bunny that shines above all else. Clearly 'Withnail & I' had a big influence on the director if not the film and you will spot similarities, which isn't a bad thing, Whitnail is a classic. Whether this resonates as much with today's youth as that film did we will have to see but all in all director Paul King's leap from small to big screen is a success. It's clever, funny and dark and the start of a big screen career that will be well worth following.

"Bunny and the Bull" is possibly the most visually inventive film I've seen in my life. It begins with a title credit sequence with the camera gracefully flowing from object to object in a small room, like in Jeunet-Caro's classic "Delicatessen". It stays in that same Delicatessenesque vein while we meet our hero, an agoraphobe who evidently hasn't left his apartment in 1 year, and then the real fun starts...

Our hero "Stephen" (Edward Hogg) stares at random objects in his meticulously cluttered apartment, and each object triggers a flashback. Each flashback is vividly adorned in scenery relating to the object that triggered it. For example, his first flashback comes from a box of fast food takeout. The flashback scene contains the actors and some real props but they are sitting inside an animated cardboard box. Occasionally cars will pass by the window outside, similarly animated cardboard cutouts.

I found this visual style to be both eye-catching and wonderfully creative. Animation is very old school, using tricks of stop motion photography, hand drawings, confetti for snow, and projection screens showing dreamlike landscapes behind the action. It reminded me of the work of Michel Gondry ("The Science of Sleep", "Eternal sunshine of the Spotless Mind") or Tim Burton's old school stuff ("Nightmare Before Christmas", "Edward Scissorhands", "Peewee's Big Adventure") but ramped up on steroids. Everything is very vivid and pleasing to the eye with cartoonish colors and simplicity surrounding what ultimately ends up being a very complex story.

The actors present a fabulous dynamic with "Stephen" being the obsessively uptight dweeb who courts a girl for 3 years before working up the nerve to say he likes her, while his best friend "Bunny" (Simon Farnaby) is the antithesis: a devil-may-care hedonist who can bed any girl in under 2 minutes it seems. The movie is a series of flashbacks unraveling a strange adventure that the two of them had together, mostly silly escapades culminating in a life-altering event that just might alter your life as well.

Something I found particularly funny was the way our hero is an animal lover, and a very outspoken one at that. He has a hilarious way of turning almost any situation awkward by expressing his views, almost like a "Debbie Downer" character. But if you're an animal lover you may find yourself cheering him on. For example, in one scene they are talking to a would-be matador who is relating the joy and elegance of bullfighting. He says something like "It is not a fight. It is a dance. A beautiful dance as only man and beast can do." And our hero Stephen fires back "Really? I thought it was all about stabbing a defenceless animal in the back of the neck until he dies." And the matador says, "It is a peculiar dance, I'll give you that." Great sarcastic & deadpan humor along with hilariously awkward situations pepper this film throughout, making it fun from beginning to end. And as I alluded earlier, there is ultimately some great depth and power to this seemingly whimsical flick.

If you're a fan of the directors I mentioned above, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Michel Gondry & Tim Burton... and I'll throw in Charlie Kaufman & Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich", "Synecdoche NY") and maybe Terry Gilliam ("Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas") then do not hesitate to see this wonderfully bizarre flick. In over 500 films, I've only given out about 20 perfect "10" ratings, but this film truly deserves the honor.