In the Sandleford warren, Fiver, a young runt rabbit who is a seer, receives a frightening vision of his warren’s imminent destruction. When he and his loving brother, Hazel, fail to convince their chief of the need to evacuate; they set out on their own with a small band of others who heeded the warning and barely manage to elude the Warren’s military caste. What follows is a perilous journey in which the band faces dangers of all varieties like predators, humans and even their own kind. While they eventually find a peaceful new home at Watership Down, they have new problems that will lead to a deadly conflict with the neighbouring Warren called Efrafa, which is a police state by the powerful and insane General Woundwart. –IMDb
I first saw this at 5 years old and sobbed at the end. As I watched it last night, it still brought tears to my eyes.
This film, I believe, portrays the remarkable aesthetics of suffering by fears, regarded by omens, legends or visions. The rabbits in the mist is just the perfect reference of exiles produced by war and misunderstandings between families. The darking violence is simply majestic and traumatizing! So many things that makes it a cousin of an invisible saga which could include LORD OF THE FLIES and THE LAND BEFORE TIME!!
This film could have easily been among the animated films of the 1990s, which made use of anthropomorphic characters and sent them on fun-filled dangerous adventures. The problem with those films was… read review
