Red Rabbit

Red Rabbit

Directed by Egmont Mayer, Germany, 2009, 8 minutes http://vimeo.com/4949853

There is a man with an extremely large rabbit in his apartment. We're given no information about where this rabbit came from, how it got so big, or why the man seems so concern with keeping the rabbit and hiding it from everyone else. It doesn't sound like much of a story.

But I think that Egmont Mayer does a great job of creating a story with a surprising amount of depth without telling the audience anything. He establishes the man's isolation from the world with one shot of the lock he has put on his door. He also does a great job showing the man's complicated relationship with the rabbit. The man is embarrassed, affectionate and covetous of the rabbit, all at the same time.

In his description of the film, Mayer describes the rabbit as representing "habits that start out small and grow into something life threatening[.]" And suddenly we all recognize the story being told. We all have a friend who starting playing too many video games or got a little too in to collecting something. And they shut themselves off with their growing rabbit. When you read this into the film, the story fills out. That's what I love about this movie. That and the giant rabbit.