Bunny and the Bull

Stephen has not left his flat in months. He orders his food, collects his urine in bottles, labels and files everything. One day the objects in the flat start reminding him of the European trip he took years ago with his friend Bunny, and the rooms turn into scenes from that journey. The subject is not the trip but remembering taking up physical space. The reason Stephen cannot leave is something that happened at the end of the journey, and the film saves it for last; until then the narration stays deliberately cheerful and scattered. The form is the film's real business. Nobody went anywhere: all of Europe was built in a studio from paper, card, photographs projected behind the actors and handmade models. A ferry at sea is plainly a toy; a museum hall is plainly a drawing. The cheapness is not hidden, because we are inside one man's head anyway. It is Paul King's first feature. He went on to make the Paddington films, and the handmade visual world here carried straight over. The cast draws on the Mighty Boosh circle, with Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt appearing in short passages. Edward Hogg plays Stephen and Simon Farnaby plays Bunny. Who it is for: viewers who like handmade visual worlds and British oddity. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the film never tries to look real for a moment.