Humans are quite a fickle thing. One can be carried away and swept easily by provocation, exploitation, and chance. Emotions become complex and trouble paired with human relationships. The connectivity of individuals is fragile. Arguments ensue. There is a rift. People will change.
Change is a scary event.
Rabbits is a fragment of Ms. Rabbit’s life, a young woman whose problems are unbeknownst to herself upon entering an interrogation. As the film follows, the viewer is pit between two characters, the woman and a disembodied voice who haunts her in more ways than one. The main character plays the classic dangerous woman trope; she is unhinged, unwinding, confused, and unsafe. However, it is up to the viewer to determine exactly what her demons are: the authoritative male voice, the constant useless questioning, or that she is choosing to not face the faults? Although she dresses and appears provocative, her little actions and movements do not place emphasis on looks. Rather, it places focus on her deteriorating mindset.
The film draws inspiration from the series Rabbits (2002, David Lynch). In Lynch’s series of short films, three humanoid rabbits are seen interacting within one room with no apparent story. Interactions include fallacious conversations in apparent non-sequiturs, merely moving around the single scene location, and individual character readings of poetry. The series provides an eerie and nearly bland story at face value, but shoves the viewers into the uncomfortableness of the mundane.
My film is an ode to the insipidity of the mind. Rabbits seeks for answers that should be understood at the common normative level, yet the main character dances around the issues at hand. She switches topics, avoids eye contact, and cannot think straight. She dodges, and attempts to fight back at the voice. Change becomes scary, Ms. Rabbit was unable to face the change. She lacks aggression, rather apologizes and thanks the voice of Mr. Rabbit. However, it is also to be noted that Mr. Rabbit too holds importance as an off-screen character. The viewer must decide if he is physical or not, what the relationship is between the characters, and whether he still exists to the end.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Drowning is a fearful event. Water takes control of your body and in the attempt to take back that motion, your body may lock up in the natural need to grasp something resembling a physical object. Everything around you is liquid and unobtainable. Growing up, I have almost drowned over seven times, blacking out in three of the situations to wake up elsewhere. Each time that I have tried to learn how to swim, I lose myself and add to the count. I cried every time.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is a short film reviewing the horrible account of the murderess Andrea Yates. In 2001, the 37 year-old woman drowned all five of her children one at a time. Their names were Noah Jacob, John Samuel, Paul Abraham, Luke David, and Mary Deborah. She gently laid her children on her bed, posthumous, while the family dog was locked in another room and the father away at work. The film seeks to emulate the troubled, calmness that appeared in the case while instilling the fear and power that comes from drowning. It takes only four minutes to drown someone.