Watership Down and Bright Eyes. A perfect pairing of Sound and Vision.

First off I feel the need to apologise to people of a certain age who will read this and watch the below clip. This film traumatised an entire generation of kids in the late 1970's and 1980's and is still the most complained about children's film ever. It's a story that introduced a lot of us to adult concepts like cruelty, slavery and violent death. It's from a time when children's films treated kids with respect and didn't talk down to them. It's 40 years old this year and hasn't lost an ounce of it's power. TBH it's like a snuff movie compared to the family film's of today.

After a rabbit named Fiver has a vision of the warren he lives in being destroyed he warns others and him and his brother Hazel lead an escape. They are attacked left right and centre before finally finding some kind of peace at a hill warren called Watership Down. Hazel returns to a farm they passed previously to rescue some doe's but gets shot by a farmer. Fiver has another vision of his wounded brother and the Black Rabbit of Inle (which was the rabbit version of the Grim Reaper) going to collect Hazel's spirit. Fiver can't give up on his brother and sets out to rescue him and this is where the film decides to really test out it's audiences tear ducts. Bright Eyes by Art Garfunkel is a song that may have lost some of it's impact over the years through repetition but when it plays over this scene it's just magnificent. It's a perfect accompaniment to that glorious animation. CGI may look cleaner and smoother but it will never grip you like hand drawn artwork. There's real soul in there.

BTW if you haven't seen this film before don't watch past 3.30



Previous parts

Casablanca
Zodiac
Jackie Brown
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
Deliverance
The Omen
Copland
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Once More With Feeling
The Mission
Before Sunset
Carlito's Way
A Knight's Tale
Platoon
Before Sunrise
Rushmore
An American Werewolf In London
Dazed And Confused
Boogie Nights
Raging Bull
Almost Famous
Once Upon A Time In The West
Goodfellas
Last Of The Mohicans