Director Paul King and writer and actor Simon Farnaby are bringing us a new look at Roald Dahl’s beloved confectioner in Wonka next year, having already delighted the entire world with their stewardship of the Paddington Cinematic Universe. But there’s another movie in their catalogue that’s worth watching: 2009’s Bunny and the Bull, a bittersweet travelogue told with imaginative visual flair and a lot of heart.
Stephen (Edward Hogg) lives alone in his London flat, unable to venture outside due to a past traumatic experience. He spends his days meticulously cataloguing and hoarding his possessions. After ordering a takeaway one night, Stephen’s memory is jogged and he recalls a trip to Europe with his best friend, Bunny, played by Farnaby.
Stephen is in a funk after being gently let down by a girl, so Bunny insists they go travelling together to lift his spirits. They are a classic chalk and cheese duo: Stephen boards the train with an overpacked backpack bulging with camping equipment and intricate cocktail making paraphernalia, to find Bunny lounging in his seat with only a carrier bag and a six pack of lager to his name.
Bunny indulges Stephen’s strict itinerary; it is after all, Stephen’s trip, as Bunny is quick to remind him. So they take in such esteemed sights as the National Eyeglass Museum of the Netherlands, the German Cookbook Museum and, best of all, the National Shoe Museum of Poland, where Richard Ayoade provides a hilariously deadpan cameo as a museum guide, asking a question that has plagued humanity for centuries: “Is a ski a shoe?”
By chance, Bunny and Stephen meet waitress Eloisa (Verónica Echegui), who is planning a trip of her own, to the annual fiesta in her Spanish home town. The two men invite her to join them on their trip, for Stephen wants to get to know Eloisa better, while Bunny is intent on fighting a bull. But his anything-goes attitude and ever escalating desire to gamble, begin to signal trouble.
Bunny isn’t always the most sympathetic of characters, particularly when he lets gambling or self-interest get in the way of their plans. But Hogg and Farnaby cement the friendship with such genuine, believable affection, we never doubt it and warm to Bunny, despite his flaws.
We experience the trio’s journey through the swirl of Stephen’s memory, never observing events as they actually happened, but merely one person’s perspective of them. The film plays with memories and narrative in a similar way to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, weaving real and unreal dimensions together and splicing them with fun transitions, while the sets and scenery are rendered in paper and string, a stationery cupboard flair that Michel Gondry would no-doubt applaud.
The liberal use of miniatures, back projection and stop motion creates a joyful aesthetic reminiscent of the likes of Wes Anderson and, more overtly, classic British kids’ television. The effects and art direction explicitly mimic the cutout animation style of the Paddington series from the 1970s, which is nicely serendipitous considering King ended up helming the Paddington movies, and wrote the second film with Farnaby. Bunny and the Bull also reminds me of the work of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, and their classic series Ivor The Engine and Noggin the Nog.
It would be remiss not to mention The Mighty Boosh, on which King and Farnaby also worked. Much of the cast appear in Bunny and the Bull, including Noel Fielding as Eloisa’s bullfighter brother Javier, and Julian Barratt as a disturbingly sinister street person who has inappropriate designs on a taxidermied bear.
Don’t be fooled into thinking Bunny and the Bull is simply a twee flight of fancy, or an exercise in style over substance. Grief and anxiety lurk at the periphery, melding with the surreal to create a movie that is neither comedy or drama; a murky, grey area that can confound people who like their movies neatly demarcated. But it is important that Bunny and the Bull defies category, delivering a tale of loss, memory and friendship that is both funny and poignant.
