Bunny and the Bull

Plot synopsis:
Stephen is an agoraphobic recluse who has not left his flat in nearly a year. Each of his days are structured around carefully planned routines, but one day his routine is disrupted when he discovers an infestation of mice in the kitchen cupboards. He contemplates leaving the flat to buy mouse traps, but can not bring himself to open the door, so he reminisces about the events leading up to his current situation, with objects around the flat triggering flash backs.
One year earlier, after being "friend zoned" by the woman he loved, Stephen went on a sightseeing holiday across Europe with his friend Bunny, who is addicted to gambling. They visit several bizarre museums, but Bunny finds them all boring and is more concerned with seducing women. At a seafood restaurant in Poland, Stephen and Bunny meet Eloisa, a Spanish waitress who has recently left her boyfriend and plans to return to Spain for an upcoming fiesta. Bunny wins the restaurant's delivery car in a bet, and Eloisa accompanies them on their journey towards Spain. They stop at a hostel in Switzerland, where Stephen plans to ask Eloisa on a date, only to discover that she has already started a sexual relationship with Bunny.
When they arrive in Spain, Eloisa is reunited with her brother Javier, an aspiring matador. Bunny decides he wants to fight a bull, so asks Javier to teach him everything he knows about bullfighting. Javier shows him a prized matador suit he keeps in a display cabinet, which Bunny later steals and subsequently loses in a bet. Elsewhere, Eloisa falls in love with Stephen and they sleep together, but the next morning Bunny explains about the lost matador suit and urges Stephen to come with him as he flees Spain. Eloisa finds out about the suit and breaks up with Stephen. On the train ride home, Stephen angrily confronts Bunny about his recklessness, but he misinterprets Stephen's frustrations as a challenge, so that night Bunny sneaks into a field and attempts to fight a bull. The bull kills him, and Stephen is left traumatised. When he returns home, Stephen's guilt develops into agoraphobia, and he has remained in his flat ever since.
In the present day, Stephen imagines a conversation with the ghost of Bunny, who asserts that his death was not Stephen's fault and urges him to talk to Eloisa. This conversation gives Stephen the confidence he needs to overcome his anxiety, so he contacts Eloisa and gains enough courage to leave the flat.

Tags: psychedelic, entertaining

Review:
This is the debut effort from director Paul King (Mighty Boosh), advertised as 'Withnail and I for the mentally ill'.
Yes, it is based on two young men going travelling, however what makes both these films great is their style, and that could not be any more different.'Withnail and I' is famously bleak, portraying the struggling characters in the context of a social-realism drabness.
This manages to create stunning visuals along with awe-inspiring animation; but still retains the charm and spark of a low-budget movie.Essentially a road movie, it tells the story of an obsessive-compulsive Stephen Turnbull (Edward Hogg) as he travels around Europe with unlikely friend, Bunny (Simon Farnaby).
These are used as jumping-off points into flashback scenes, as shot from his mental illness-addled imagination.While at moments touching, the main problem seemed to be the lack of shots helping us to engage with the two leads.
The titular character, Bunny, is not fully realised, flickering between off-the-wall quirkiness, reminiscent of Seinfeld's Kramer, and a one-dimensional, Northern booze-hound.With cameos from Mighty Boosh's Noel Fielding, playing an unhinged matador, and Julian Barratt as a dog-milk-craving tramp, the expectations are understandable for this to be a feature-length episode of the show.
However, the film takes the much loved quirks from first series of Boosh and manages to restrain them; connecting its celebrated vivid imagery with the real world, which allows viewers to connect better with the narrative.While in parts uncomfortable, the state of Turnbull's mental illness slowly dawning, the film action never slows and gives the audience chance to get bored.
Not as quick-paced as Boosh, this only serves to help the plot lines form naturally and the film to flourish, highlighting the real star of the film; Paul King..
The story is essentially an adventure/drama (with a few comedy touches) but there's no denying that it's marginally darker than pretty much anything from the Mighty Boosh (if that's what you're expecting).
It's almost impossible not to compare King's writing to Barrat/Fielding's because of the nature of the film and many characters being played by the cast of the show and it really doesn't compare in my opinion.
It is a little surreal but at its heart, its a nice little story of friendship.In short, an agoraphobic man tries to work up the courage to leave his house.
"Bunny and the Bull" is possibly the most visually inventive film I've seen in my life.
It stays in that same Delicatessenesque vein while we meet our hero, an agoraphobe who evidently hasn't left his apartment in 1 year, and then the real fun starts...Our hero "Stephen" (Edward Hogg) stares at random objects in his meticulously cluttered apartment, and each object triggers a flashback.
Everything is very vivid and pleasing to the eye with cartoonish colors and simplicity surrounding what ultimately ends up being a very complex story.The actors present a fabulous dynamic with "Michael" being the obsessively uptight dweeb who courts a girl for 3 years before working up the nerve to say he likes her, while his best friend "Bunny" (Simon Farnaby) is the antithesis: a devil-may-care hedonist who can bed any girl in under 2 minutes it seems.
The movie is a series of flashbacks unraveling a strange adventure that the two of them had together, mostly silly escapades culminating in a life-altering event that just might alter your life as well.Something I found particularly funny was the way our hero is an animal lover, and a very outspoken one at that.
I thought it was all about stabbing a defenceless animal in the back of the neck until he dies." And the matador says, "It is a peculiar dance, I'll give you that." Great sarcastic & deadpan humor along with hilariously awkward situations pepper this film throughout, making it fun from beginning to end.
This 'surreal' comedy plays much like an extended episode of The Mighty Boosh, however, it is far more endearing than this.
The story focuses on friends Stephen (Edward Hogg) and Bunny (Simon Farnaby).
After acquiring a vehicle in a crab eating contest, Stephen and Bunny catch up with Eloisa and make that journey happen.The connection between this and the BBC show The Mighty Boosh, is obvious, as the films writer/director Paul King is involved in directing the shows episodes.
The inclusion of Noel Fielding and Julien Barract in small (but highly hilarious) parts heightens this further.The visual style of the film is reminiscent of the work of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Michel Gondry.
In an opening sequence we she Stephen and Bunny making bets in a bookies that looks like a set lifted from an episode of Paddington from the 1970s: that is, two dimensional pencil sketched surroundings.There is much to like here, the performances of the two main characters are excellent, especially Simon Farnaby, who dresses like a 1970s binman.
In conclusion, a beautifully crafted film visually, with many laugh-out-loud moments, and some endearing characters.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com.
Firstly this isn't a Mighty Boosh film and secondly this isn't a comedy, yes it has some funny moments, but it's more of a drama.
Quirkily telling the story of a road trip across Europe by friends Bunny and Stephen the action is told through a series of lo-fi set pieces which is a heady blend of Gilliam, Gondry and even Oliver Postgate.
It's an age old story of boy meets girl, girl meets boy's best friend etc but the way the story unfolds with the aid of the animation gives it a fresh lease of life, its surreal and weird but at the same time charming and real.
A series of cameos from three fifths of the Boosh are a little light relief in what turns out to be quite a dark tale but it's really Simon Farnaby as the lovable rogue Bunny that shines above all else.
Reminiscent of Michel Gondry's work, Paul King has created a fantasy world that is both beautiful and unique.
It touched a soft spot as it reminded me of my relationship to my best friend, and how our lives ended up.The worlds created for this touching film are all surreal, beautifully crafted from books, paper mache, and other arts & crafts.
Paul "Mighty Boosh" King storms onto the silver screen with a cavalcade of imaginative imagery, from a snow globe mountain retreat to a clockwork bullfight, but then attempts to meld it all with an atrocious script, which is at times inane, elsewhere sentimental, and riddled with boring f-bombs.
The dialogue is full of jokes but empty of wit or insight.Broadly (and it often is) the film is about a traumatised and possibly agoraphobic young man named Stephen who musters a lo-fi Euro road trip in his head, the landscape and characters forged only by the contents of his apartment.
As a viewer all we have to root for is the soppy, infantile Stephen (Edward Hogg) and the crass, infantile Bunny (Simon Farnaby).There's an almost amusing turn from Richard Ayoade as a bored shore museum curator.
As a fan of The Mighty Boosh, I'm surprised that it took me so long to get around to watching this film; my girlfriend hating the Boosh probably was part of it but either way I finally got to seeing it recently.
The film is a story of a young man who is a recluse and has not left the house in over a year and seems unable to do so in the near future.
Closed into a carefully organised prison of his own making, he remembers the last time he left the house – an European road trip with his friend Bunny which involved a Polish tramp, a Spanish bullfighter, a feisty waitress and a massive stuffed bear.The connection to Boosh is apparent not only in the writer/director and small roles for Fielding and Barratt but just in the construct of the film from the very start.
Sadly the overall story didn't quite match up to this and I didn't find myself quite as charmed or tickled by the main thrust of the film – it is OK, but never hilarious nor as clever as I had hoped.This noticeably changes when Fielding and Barratt have their turns in the film.
He works when the material helps him, but at times he is a bit too basic and lacking in the presence and character that the Boosh duo brought to their roles – OK they had the laughs to help them, but still, Farnaby doesn't totally work for me in this casting.
I really liked the spirit and accent of Echegui and I also appreciated seeing Ayoade in a small role.Bunny and the Bull is definitely worth a look if you love the Boosh, because the humour is very much in that ilk and the semi-animated world is really well constructed and delivered.
Paul King worked on The Mighty Boosh, the much loved, surreal British TV show, so I hoped to get some of that in this.
Really the film is a road trip, one down memory lane as a obsessively compulsive agoraphobic man looks back on a trip through Europe with his best mate.On the trip they encounter a variety of characters including a young Spanish woman with whom he falls for and yet his friend beds.
In the end through tragedy the man learns to see life differently and step into the outside world again.The film has so much potential, but it never seems to know what it's trying to be.
British comedy is known for often being surreal, odd and quirky and this film tries to be all, yet it also tries to be too surreal, odd and quirky yet too clever, whilst never allowing the audience to engage with it's main characters who are either too placid or too grotesque.
But at the same time the visual style becomes a little too much and draws away from the story line which may have come out better had the film used less quirk and more convention in telling it's story.
Noel Fielding proves finally that he can act but his scene goes nowhere and instead we are left with the rotten yoghurt of English comedy for the majority of the film.
Really, the lead Edward Hogg seems like a good actor, but he was given terrible direction from a director clearly obsessed with the visual feastyness of it all.
The movie aims to be a sort of Amelie, but remains in a failed attempt to create an aesthetic kind Michael Gondry (cheap sets, much cardboard painting with pen and funny cartoons that here are not), about an agoraphobic and his memories before to be.
The hand crafted animations and interesting characters in this well written story of the travels of two best friends add to the overall feeling of watching a well presented story unfold from the comforts of your couch (and your safe home) Love to detail, a really pleasant tempo and good actors weave a really well done picture..
Bunny and the Bull starts with the lead character Stephen a Paranoid Neurotic living a hermit like existence.
Let me start by saying this film is Visually brilliant, it uses so many idea's and creativity to set the scene in a surreal imaginary way for me this was the best feature of this film and credit is due to everyone involved on this front.Edward Hogg plays Stephen who does a good job of creating his paranoid character and is always believable.
Te film centres around the whole buddy premise, in this case the comedy double act of the straight v's funny guy e.g Morecambe and WiseStephens friend is Bunny played by Simon Farnaby, he is supposed to be the lovable idiot and supposed to provide the laugh's.The other main character is Eloisa played by Veronica Echegui who supply's the love interest and creates the antagonist between the two friends.The supporting cast was very good and a notable performance from Julian Barret as Atilla and Noel Fielding has a small part as Matador Javier.
There were also attempt at cheap laughs in the form of crude visual gags that maybe a 12 yr old would find funny but come on guys I expect better.
To this day, 'Mighty Boosh' director Paul King won't touch seafood.
It's no coincidence that in King's debut feature, Bunny And The Bull, the most revolting European chain restaurant he can conceive of is called 'Captain Crab', serving up slimy portions of barely-dead crustacean.But back to that lobster for a moment: it doesn't take an armchair psychologist to drum up a corollary between the surreal and often fraught comedy of Bunny, and The Boosh, and that traumatic childhood incident.
If King can't go near shellfish again, his paranoid, agoraphobic creation Stephen 'Bull' Turnbull (played by Edward Hogg) can't seem to leave his Kings Cross flat for fear of something awful happening.
This is a man so terrified of the unexpected, and of that which he cannot control, he has turned his dismal flat into a virtual mausoleum, stacking his own pee in jars, "and noting its PH".The reasons behind his self-incarceration are soon revealed: an ultimately doomed European road trip taken with his toxic best friend Bunny (Simon Farnaby).
Initially taking in such genuine museums as The German Museum of Cutlery and the National Shoe Museum of Poland (your laconic tour guide, one Richard Ayoade), Bunny decides his lovesick friend requires more stimulating adventures, and soon they're picking up a sexy Spanish waitress Eloisa (Verónica Echegui), stealing stuffed bears and encountering a barking mad Hungarian tramp called Atilla (Julian Barratt), who much prefers to drink his dog's milk directly from the dog.Given the presence of the latter, and of a pleasingly restrained Noel Fielding who also cameos here as a booze-sodden matador, the real shocker is that this isn't in fact 'Boosh: The Movie' (which at time of writing, is apparently in the works).
At any rate, as with Withnail, and the comedy of duo Oram and Meeten, there's deeper stuff going here on than just a bunch of stoner-style antics.All this is played out against part-animated, endlessly inventive handcrafted backdrops, including an underpass made from newspaper, a fairground made from clock parts and a bull made out of cutlery - not to mention a bravura credit sequence, which utilises everything in Stephen's flat from pocket calculators to postage stamps.
Like most of you, I'm a big fan of the Mighty Boosh.
Because of this, I was very keen to see director Paul King's latest project which featured cameos of my two favorite men, Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt.
At first, I was a little perplexed as to why the two unknown leads were cast as Stephen and Bunny, when they looked exactly like Noel and Julian.
Although I wasn't expecting much apart from a few laughs and a few cameos what I got out of this film was so much more.As the film begins, we are introduced to a character known as Stephen, who hasn't left his flat in over a year.
Through the use of stop motion animation and amazing special effects, we travel back a year.The story provides a great deal of humor with a number of 'laugh out loud' moments.
Previously unknown, Edward Hogg and Simon Farnaby bring something to the script that I don't think even the Boosh boys could manage.
They are the heart and soul of the movie, and when you learn their story, your heart breaks.Throughout the film, I was in amazement at how original the idea was, how beautiful the effects were, despite such a low budget.
Then suddenly, as the film draws to an end, Bunny decides he must prove himself to Stephen by challenging a bull.
Stephen sits in the empty field next to Bunny's body and I find tears streaming down my face.The film then flashes back to Stephen in the apartment, for after all, this has just been a story he's been telling.
Finally, with a few encouraging words from Bunny, who we find out, wasn't really there in the flat with him at all, Stephen gets his courage and leaves the house.What a beautiful bitter sweet story he has just told..
It was like watching The Mighty Boosh, if it was horribly depressing and trying to be quirky and indie.
I got this movie because I do like The Mighty Boosh and also the IT Crowd.
It goes from this well developed space to being awkward (but not even in a funny way) and less interesting.Simon Farnaby, who reminds me of Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh and even played a double of Howard Moon (called Harold Moon) in one of my favorite episodes, The Power of the Crimp, is the funniest part of the film.
Noel Fielding plays Vince Noir in The Mighty Boosh as the other main character to Howard Moon.
So, this reminds me a lot of The Mighty Boosh with its actors and creative style.
Yet, it isn't funny like the Mighty Boosh is.
Picking two guys who look like the leads in his TV series, makes me wonder if Paul King didn't take the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to the two guys having crazy adventures route.The road trip idea sounds like a good one, especially if done without leaving the house.
It does have a sort of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibe, but the opposite way, as Stephen the Shut-In (Hogg), reflects on his trip to Europe with Bunny (Farnaby).
I was pretty sure what had happened to Bunny as Stephen had flashbacks every time he opened the eye piece on his door to look out...and it wasn't happy.
I would expected a little less laughs if this was marketed more like a depressing drama or deep yet quirky (meaning not a whole lot of laughs) indie film.It plays like a depressing Mighty Boosh.
Think of Mighty Boosh, then take the humor out for the most part and have it play like a serious deep yet quirky (meaning not that funny) indie film and there you go!
This could have easily been a Mighty Boosh film with a few script edits.