Watership
Down
(1978)
(SPOILERS)
I only read Watership Down recently,
despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed
with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is.
It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of
Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater
for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who
get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given
the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the
face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate.
As the
makers noted, Watership Down is at
least in part an Exodus story, but
the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the
titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit
universe, one very much informed by an Old Testament view of God, such that
Frith treats his rabbit subjects (and particularly El-ahrairah) with impunity,
rather than mercy. They are, as C3P0 might say, made to suffer. The novel’s
main narrative is broken intermittently with stories concerning the attempts by
El-ahrairah to outwit Frith, or punishment by his god, or his encounters with
the Black Rabbit of Inle (in the film, Hazel offers himself to Black Rabbit to
protect his own, as El-ahrairah does in the novel; in both instances, Frith
turns him down).
It’s
striking how fully developed Adams’ world is, in a manner not so dissimilar to
George Lucas’ pre-fabricated Star Wars
universe. Both preoccupy themselves with the Campbellian hero’s journey, after
all. Adams arranges his stage with prophets (Fiver, voiced by Richard Briers),
no-nonsense heroes (Bigwig, voiced by Michael Graham Cox) and sidekicks/comic
relief (Kehaar, voiced by Zero Mostel, who manages to be the amusing centre of
the movie while also occupying what is ostensibly the Han Solo role, right down
to swooping to the rescue at a crucial moment).
Underpinning
and permeating these archetypes is an absolutely integral belief system. Rather
than the Force, it is Frith and the Black Rabbit that are a simple fact of
existence; the picture is bookended by Frith’s individualisation of El-ahriarah
as a rabbit, and an older Hazel shuffling off his mortal coil in the company of
the Black Rabbit; so too, at the midpoint, there comes the inclusion of Art
Garfunkle’s memorably crooned Bright Eyes
(more famous than the film itself), as Fiver is led to his brother Hazel
through a vision quest.
Uncartoonified
design, fitting the pigeonhole-less book, Watership
Down, despite being directed by an American, fits into a highly
individualised tradition of British animation (until the industry essentially
became Aardman). The anthropomorphism is subtle, such that you’re barely aware
(barring Keehar) of mouth movements as the (outstanding) voice cast deliver
their dialogue.
The results are simple yet poetic and elegiac, visualised
through pastoral pastel backgrounds and naturalistic behaviour and movements from
the landscape’s animal inhabitants. Filmmakers often say they’re attempting to
honour source material while the end product reveals nothing of the sort, so
betraying their essential cynicism, but Rosen genuinely means it and genuinely delivers.
Areas that would no doubt have been discarded under a Hollywood umbrella, such
as the distinctive rabbit language, are retained without, rightly, feeling the
need to explain; audiences can readily understand.
Adams’ book
is replete with sex and death. The former is less prevalent in the picture,
albeit remains the motivating force for all the problems encountered during the
second half of the picture. Of note is that Adams’ presents the matriarchal
rabbit kingdom as patriarchal, with does objectified as producers young, which
has earned it understandable criticism from some quarters. The novel also
features liberal helpings of coprophagia. As Rosen notes, no one was sure
initially if this was a children’s or adult book, and the film follows that guiding
principal, often regarded as much too distressing for young children by parents
yet contrastingly loved dearly by those who appreciate a different,
distinctive, intelligent tale, one that refuses to talk down to or coddle its
audience.
And it
isn’t as if the makers attempted to hoodwink cinemagoers; the poster depicts Bigwig
caught in a snare in! Blood is everywhere in the film, both literal and
metaphorical, and there is no shying away from animal casualties; this is
animation poised between the comfort of anthropomorphism and the reality of a
natural history programme (as a reminder of its heartland feel, we even hear “This is the BBC Home Service” on the
radio at one point).
There is
also much hallucinatory imagery, from Fiver’s vision of blood encroaching
across a field (very much adopting the tone of a horror movie, sinisterly
corrupting the countryside Just as the machines will in due course) to Holly
recounting the terrifying destruction of the warren, expressionistic rabbits
suffocating in blocked holes, grasping for air. One wonders if the film didn’t
impact on Vincent Ward when he was making Navigator:
A Medieval Odyssey, what with the interpretation of the great metal beast that
is a train as a messenger from Frith.
Sound is also
used in an uncompromising way, very much following the horror genre. Angela
Morley turned five minutes of Malcolm Williamson cues into a full score in only
two weeks, and takes in themes from the idyllic to the martial, almost
imperially so, of the Efrafan in their pursuit of the Hazel’s rabbits. The
climax is notable in that (like the novel) it utilises what would become the
fake-out of a thousand slasher movies or Thomas Harris novels; just when you
thought it was safe, General Woundwort returns.
There is compression here, but little of it
leaves one complaining how much better the the film would have been if only it
stuck to the source material. Changes include having Holly come across the
Efrafans during his escape from the doomed warren (rather than as part of an
expedition sent by Hazel to find mates), but this doesn’t really hurt the
structure; while it would be quire possible to make a two-and-a-half-hour Watership Down (apparently the ‘90s TV
series loosely followed, and sanitised, the novel), and make it riveting to
watch, that just isn’t the way with animations, which, conscious of viewer ages
and resources, generally stick to the 90-minute mark. Perhaps Fiver is rather
forgotten in the end (he doesn’t get his moment at the climax, unlike the novel)
but he does cue up events with the warning “There’s
a dog loose in the wood”.
Some find
the animation style crude, judged by today’s standards, and it was even called
out in relation to the cost-cutting approach of Disney at that time (Time Out
was scathing, writing it off as a glorified radio play and lacking any of the
novel’s punch), yet I find it difficult to countenance such criticism with what
is so persuasively charming and distinctive.
Also
distinctive is one of the best voice casts ever assembled for an animation,
headed up by Hurt’s unusually heroic role as Hazel, Briers perfectly
encapsulating Fiver’s woozy vulnerability, and Pipkin even looking a little
like Roy Kinnear. Ralph Richardson’s Chief Rabbit is almost a boorish civil
servant, oblivious to the danger he is in, while Denholm Elliot’s Cowslip,
resident of the snared warren, is a fantastically louche, flaky, creepy rabbit
poet (“Where are you going, stream…”),
sitting idly by and ignoring suffering on his doorstep (so a rabbit very much humanised
by human intent).
Indeed, one most regrets the reduction in representation of
characters from the novel when one scans the supporting cast; names such as
Hannah Gordon (Hyzenthlay), Nigel Hawthorne (Campion) and Derek Griffiths
(Vervain). Michael Hordern and Joss Ackland are marvellous as Frith and the
Back Rabbit respectively, the former instilling a hauntingly wistful authority,
while Harry Andrews is a suitably imperious Woundwort (“Dogs aren’t dangerous!”)
And, of
course, there’s seagull Keehar’s “plenty
good fella”, wonderfully brought to life by Zero Mostel in his last film
role. He’s the comic relief, granted the best hero moment and also the biggest
laugh (and shock), exclaiming “Piss off!”
to the rabbits when he first meets them (this is in the novel, but it’s still
an eyebrow-raiser in a U certificate family film). While there’s little
similarity between the plots of Watership
Down and Mrs Frisby and the Rats of
NIMH, both Robert C O'Brien's novel and Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH, the latter released four years after Watership Down, also include a feathered slapstick sidekick in the form of dim-watt crow Jeremy (voiced by Dom DeLuise).
Watership Down went down extremely well in the UK, but was a failure in the US. Perhaps its uncompromising approach was a bit of a sucker punch in a country so used to Disney niceties. Still, it did well enough that Rosen followed it up with an adaptation of Adams’ The Plague Dogs (also with Hurt and Hawthorne). The in-the-making BBC CGI adaptation of Watership is inevitable, I guess, although I will be extremely surprised if it remains as true to the novel as Rosen (conversely, it would be nice to see faithful remakes of the likes of Mrs Frisby, The Iron Giant and The Fantastic Mr Fox one day). Watership Down’s greatest strength is that it carries the air of undoctored truth, neither patronising nor appeasing its audience; nature is cruel, harsh, resplendent and beguiling in this melancholic classic. It’s one of the best British animations ever made.
