Rabbits (2002)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Boring

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I couldn't stop laughing and saying "What the eff". I found out later it was a horror movie.I highly recommend this if you're in an altered state. I actually have no idea what the movie was about. I need to watch it again. I'm not sure if you are purposely watching it that it will have the same effect, though.This was years ago. I just happened to run across it here on IMDb so I figured I would comment about what a trip it was.My wife also always tries to tell people about it but we never even knew what it was called until now.

This is a beautiful film from David Lynch, but unfortunately, not a lot of people are going to view it that way. The reason it's so stunning to me is because there is so much tension in just one continuous shot. It's definitely creepy but there are a lot more layers to it than just that. I don't think anyone ever knew that a video with people in bunny costumes and a laugh track could be so uncomfortable. It's one of the most ambiguous things I've ever seen but I'm OK with that, because it is so well done that in a way, I don't have to know what exactly is going on. It's a piece of art and it doesn't have to be anything more than that. Check this one out and I think you'll find that it is obviously Lynch behind the scenes!

Everyone who has seen David Lynch's Inland Empire will be familiar with the rabbits of this short film (screened in some places broken down into episodes). Personally I struggled to work out if Inland Empire was brilliant or rubbish and ultimately I concluded that it was both but that it was worth seeing because of what an unnerving and unusual experience it was. The rabbit snippets are all part of it as they meant very little to be but yet managed to actually make me feel uncomfortable and uneasy while watching them. As a result I decided to check out the full Rabbits film.In an interviewer about Lynch's website project, someone did describe Rabbits as one for the hard-core Lynch fans and this description is bang on the money because it does deliver everything that he does well while also failing (or rather, not trying) to deliver in other, usual areas. Where the snippets hit home for me is in their sheer menacing stiffness. "Normal" things such as the apartment and the idea of a sitcom are all presented in a twisted and perverted way that Lynch viewers will be used to. Just like in Twin Peaks (where backwards characters talk in a red velvet room) the movement is strange, the lighting is eerie, the dialogue is confusing and the whole thing is delivered under a brooding score that suggests an impending destruction or evil.In this regard the film is quite brilliant and it is very disturbing to watch it in a dark room n a quiet night. But this is also the problem with the film because there is nothing more to it and ultimately the novelty value of it wears off long before the 45 minute mark. After a while I did want more but the film just continued to deliver what it had done at the very start. Die-hard fans of Lynch will love it and take pleasure in trying to pick the meaning out of it but for me it was more a matter of hanging on until the conclusion. It is a shame because in small sections Rabbits is really well done and fascinating. Lynch's creativity is powerful and works across the board – many have neglected to mention the physical actors in the film (not the famous voices) but their work is important, with a stillness and deliberate movements being key in the delivery.Overall then a very strong film for those that love Lynch's creepy work but it is hard to ignore the fact that the running time is too long to sustain the long pauses and very slow pace. As a result it never works as well as it does in its limited use within Inland Empire. Fans should still watch it for what it does well but for the majority of viewers the running time will be far too long and boredom may take away from the uneasy and creepy delivery.

Lynch really elevated my opinion of him here. This is very, very well constructed. It is the highest art.That means that any "explanation" will be worthless. You can read some other material to discover something of what you will see.Its unsettling and strange, hypnotic and lyrical. That it is in several "episodes" is all a part of how certain familiar forms are subverted to give us something that has identity and also has a sort of meta-identity defined by deviance from the expected.My observation will be highly personal. I see this as a sort of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern" but instead of referencing "Hamlet" engages "Alice in Wonderland." It fits, especially if you are inclined — as I am — to blow Alice into something as world-swallowing as Hamlet. Where Hamlet is all about what it means to sit in the world, Alice works at more refined level, being all about what it means to carry a name in the world.One is about being and the other about what we see and acknowledge about being. Its this second conceptual space that Lynch inhabits, always has. His "firewalking" TeeVee stuff bends notions of representation and discovery, the amusement being not in what we see, but in the difference between what we expect to see.Let's look at the entire vocabulary he has toyed with. First, he acknowledges the audience (laugh track), camera (static but in and out of focus), narrative (drawn more overtly by its fragmentation), framing (with very formal, abstract composition) and "acting," which here consists more of pauses and empty spaces than anything we normally associate with acting.And then there's the bending of the form. We have a demon that appears twice. Its noir drawn tightly, especially since there is a hint that the demon or his avatar as perhaps a "lost dog" is driving the entire situation. And then we have three "performances," one each by the three characters. These are accompanied by an ignited set, literally ignited. The performances, which each occupy an episode, are pretty transcendent in terms of what we would see in an ordinary drama. In such a case, each would "solo" in such a way that their soul was revealed. Its the challenge of the writer to weave this into events in such a way that we don't see the performer revealing his character overtly. This is different; all pretense is removed. The character enters and opens its heart with no narrative baggage. What the character tells us actually has more information about context than the surrounding context provides.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.