Rabbits (2002)

31 Days of Spookoween: DAY TENFilm #10: Rabbits (2002)Review: Everything...the lighting, the sounds, the music, the voices, the script, the set design, the costumes...it's all so terrifying, it's all so odd. There's something off about this film, and that "something" goes way beyond the fact that it's about a bunch of people wearing bunny suits having a nonlinear conversation that is occasionally accompanied by a laugh track...that "something" comes from the dialogue, from the performances. Lynch is trying to tell us some kind of twisted tale in a totally enigmatic and surprising way. His unique touch turns this otherwise silly premise into the stuff of a most worrying nightmare...it's a disturbing portrait of a "wholesome", standard family gone wrong. We know there is some heavy tension between the three of them; there are hints at a possible incestuous relationship between the father daughter or the possibility of some mysterious individual stalking and tormenting these rabbits, or even the implication that these three were involved in some kind of violent crime...likely involving dogs and electricity to some capacity (that is if you take the moments made up of a single character's absurd monologue more literally). The characters don't even seem to have the slightest clue of what EXACTLY is going on...it's always about some other that is never specified, there are questions being thrown about left and right, and much of the responses never come. Nothing is chronological, nothing is right, something is wrong here. Something is really wrong.

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.

Yes, everything is jumbled. It's all jumbled because that is how we experience life. It's how we, our minds, experience the sensations and stimuli that constitute thought and memory and perception. It's the phenomenon of awareness, how events effect our consciousness. It's how events are relived again and again in our minds. Our "Present" moment is constantly amused by, confused by, taunted by and terrorized by memories, impressions and feelings of past moments and events. Our "Present" moment is also assaulted, distorted, effected by future events or moments. How so? By thinking about things that have yet to happen, good or bad, we shape our present moment. The awareness of future moments and events brings pleasure, joy, anxiety, dread, terror into our present experience. Apparently it's mostly anxiety, dread and terror because that is how we are "wired" to react to the unknown. What's more unknown then the future? This is how we are experiencing the "Right Now". According to this experience – which is the "Real" way life enters and effects us – linear, chronological time is a poor, inefficient standard by which to relay or recreate that "Real" experience. You know how some movies reorder the sequence of events to make it fun, confusing, shocking to tell their story? That deeply felt "Aha!" moment when we finally get it, when it all sorts out in our minds. That experience is in fact what makes up "Reality", but occurring much, much more frequently. Occurring constantly, incessantly, eternally, like a never ending nuclear explosion in the mind. It's a terrifying, exhilarating jet stream of 'Aha!s" that constitute our experience of "Reality". You must respect the nature of the phenomenon of "awareness" if you are hoping to instill in your audience, not just information or a mood or a feeling, but a profound "Real" experience. Once you "tune in", then everything (suddenly?) falls in line and you find yourself. You find yourself not just "watching" and "considering" and "understanding" what's going on, but above all, experiencing it. It nearly feels as though it's your own original experience. Nearly.David's 'Rabbits" is a device to recreate his experience not just for our eyes, ears and hearts, but for our consciousness. At the moment we are "watching" his "Rabbits", we are also experiencing life in our nonlinear, personal way. Most people just aren't aware of it. The linear, sequential flat time of "traditional" movies actually is at odds with how our minds are processing "Real" life, but we have learned - been conditioned - to translate as best we can this unnaturally occurring movie information. As we have gotten accustomed to this convention of linear movie time, we have been adopting, and accepting, an inferior reality. A "Real" moment is "experienced", not just watched and heard. And a "movie" is only experienced as "Real" if our minds are processing it in the exact same manner it processes "Real" stimuli, which means not sequentially, but in an echoing, repetitive, staggered, disrupted, broken, vague order. David's "story" has therefore been translated so that it is similar, parallel, consistent with everything else that our mind is experiencing at the moment "Rabbits" is being "watched." You just have to understand the "language" that it's been translated into, which David gives some helpful directions to right at the very beginning and all through. It's by performing the slightly complex contortions of your awareness in order to experience his "story" that you are "opening" yourself up to fully receive, experience it. Once you make this necessary adjustment of your awareness you then "see" so much more clearly. It's one hell of an experience - the anxiety, dread, terror, horror, relief, joy, surprise, and desire are experienced much less out of confusion and much more so out of clarity. There's a "story" underneath, behind, around, within all this seemingly random oddness. That "story" is a very intense experience. And the experience is in the moment of accepting it.Sounds complicated but it's just like those 3d pictures that look like a flat repetitive pattern, but when you focus your eyes just right, you suddenly can "see" into it a very deep, dimensional object or scene that appears "real". You shift your focus just ever so slightly, and it's gone, flat and meaningless again. Same thing here, but the shift in focus is not with your optical vision, but with your awareness. The place or attitude or moment we must shift our awareness to is the key to unlocking the whole experience. And that's easy and tricky.It's an astounding process that David has employed. It's something he gleaned from his 32+ years of Transcendental Meditation. And all this just describes the process we must pass through to "get on" the right "eyes" in order to experience the "Real Story" that is "Rabbits". The "Real Story" is in the mind of the creator but it's equally in the mind of the viewer. True Theater of the Mind. It's like turbo-ultra-3D in the mind. And all done without drugs or a severe concussion.I came upon this awareness through his "Inland Empire" where "Rabbits" are so powerfully effective as an element of reverential doom(?). I transposed my experience with "IE" to find my "way" into Rabbits, which has a much less specific "story" compared to "IE." When you happen upon the "way" it all rushes up to greet you. You will know "Rabbits".

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.