Myxomatosis ★★★★★

Review of 'Myxomatosis' which can be found here at Future Shorts.

Length: 04:18

Written by Nicholas Ray Rutter & directed by George Ancock

Genre: Comedy

Date: 2011

Rating: ★★★★★

Logline: A man is urged by his girlfriend to put a dying rabbit out of its misery when out for a walk along the beach.

A nice little film that will undoubtedly make us all ponder on how we would react if we found ourselves in a similar situation as well as a comic exploration of masculinity and gender roles. I say comic, it's pretty dark. Caving in a rabbits head is grim, there's no doubt about that but I was heavily reminded of Peter Jackson's fantastically gore-filled comedy 'Braindead' where the rat-monkey suffers a similarly eye popping demise.

It is beautifully shot. The serene plain beach landscape (do rabbits live on beaches?) is used as the perfect canvas on which blood to splatter. The desolate wind provides much of the soundtrack highlighting the isolation of the poor wee rabbit as well as the couples predicament. Extra points have been awarded for the squelching noise of the dying rabbit breathing which is so unsettling it makes you wish they'd hurry up and kill the bloody thing just so you don't have to hear it any more. The acting is understated to good affect by both performers, Gary McErlane as the henpecked boyfriend and Samantha Baines as the moralistic ("we should probably kill it") girlfriend who isn't offering to snap any necks herself. Most of the comedy comes from McErlane's reactions rather than in dialogue which is naturalistic and easy. Pacing is well done as is the structure which utilises the rule of three to provide us with three grizzly ways in which to murder a critter.

Thematically multi-layered, you can take it on its surface level as a daft comedy, as a commentary on the emasculation of modern man or dig deeper and theorise on its existentialist subject matter. This, to me, is what makes this film stand out as excellent. I'm not sure I would consider it entertaining, I'm not sure I'd really want to watch it ever again, but I am sure I'll not forget it for a while and there is a strength in that ability to stay with an audience long after viewing and this mimics the characters themselves. The myxomatised rabbit is left just as it was found, technically nothing actually happens. It is the characters, through deciding to take no action, who have arced and therefore been left somehow changed.

Best Bit: Hideous infected rabbit puppetry.

Worst Bit: The credits take up a third of the length.

Final thought: Myxomatosis is about as rare as white dog shit these days isn't it.

Read a condensed review of this film on Twitter here.