TheMovieStory

Watership Down is an animated film directed by Martin Rosen and based on the book by Richard Adams. It was released in 1978 and was largely financed by Jake Eberts’ company, Goldcrest Films. After a slow start upon release, it became the sixth most popular film of 1979 at the British box office.[1]

The film featured the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Harry Andrews, Simon Cadell, Nigel Hawthorne and Roy Kinnear, among others, and was the last film appearance of Zero Mostel, as the voice of Kehaar the gull.

Art Garfunkel’s British No. 1 hit, “Bright Eyes”, was also featured, although in a different arrangement from the version released as a record. The musical score was by Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson.

After the genesis story rendered in a narrated simplistic cartoon fashion, the animation style changes to a detailed, naturalist one, with concessions to render the animals anthropomorphic only to suggest they have human voices and minds, some facial expressions for emotion and paw gestures. The animation backgrounds are watercolors. Only one of the predators, the farm cat, is given a few lines, the rest remaining mute.

Synopsis

Watership Down opens with an animated prologue (by John Canemaker), which establishes the Lapine culture and mythological history. It describes the rabbit version of creation, in which the sun god “Lord Frith” creates the world, and in a mixed blessing, deems the mischievous rabbit prince El-ahrairah and his descendants to be forever hunted but also forever agile survivors.

The film switches from a cartoony narrative of the Lapine mythology to a realistic-looking story for the rest of the film. The story is set in the English countryside. Fiver, a young runt rabbit with prophetic abilities to see the future, foresees the end of his peaceful rabbit warren, Sandleford, and asks others to leave with him. Fiver and his older brother Hazel attempt to pursuade their chief rabbit to have the warren evacuated and moved elsewhere. The chief dismisses the two, and then punishes his guard and Owsla officer, Bigwig, for disobeying his Captain’s orders to send Fiver and Hazel away. Though they meet resistance from him, at least twenty of them eventually leave, only to be captured by the warren’s Owsla, the soldiers or police of a warren.

However, eight rabbits fight off the Owsla, injuring the Owsla’s Captain, Holly, in the process and rendering themselves wanted men. They successfully escape Sandleford. This band includes Fiver and Hazel, the burly Owsla officer Bigwig, the Chief Rabbit’s nephew Silver, the shy and cunning rabbit Blackberry, the smallest rabbit Pipkin, and the only female, Violet, and Dandelion. The rabbits first stop to rest at a nearby field, where Violet is killed when she steps out in the open to eat. A nearby hawk claws her.

After crossing a road, swimming away from a nerby hunting dog, and escaping from a rat-infested cemetary, the band reaches a warren which appears to be inhabited by friendly rabbits, led by a rabbit named Cowslip. The majority of the group is content and grateful for shelter, but Fiver is suspicious and senses something wrong. Disillusioned, he leaves, and Bigwig goes to seek him. He taunts Fiver and ridicules him to the point where even Hazel agrees with Bigwig. Bigwig dismisses Fiver by imitating him in a taunting way, only to become caught in a snare when he returns to the other rabbits.

Fiver attempts to get help from Cowslip and his rabbits, but Cowslip tells Fiver not to talk about it, dismissing his statement. The Sandleford rabbits discover that the warren is fed by a farmer, who occasionally snares rabbits in return for his food and care from predators. Bigwig is choked until he coughs out blood and passes out. Bigwig is eventually freed, but it is already too late. The rabbits are convinced he’s dead, and deliver a eulogy of sorts. Bigwg awakes only moments later, bloodied, but alright. He rejoins the group. Shocked and tired, the band move on rather than stay.

The rabbits finally find a place to rest under a waggon, they discover Nuthanger farm, which contains a hutch of domesticated female rabbits. Hazel decides that if they’re going to have a new home, they’l need females with which they wil have children. However, there is also a cat and dog on the farm, the rabbits can’t be seen by them. Hazel promises the does he will return later to free them.

Fully rested and healed, the rabbits set off on their search again and, unexpectedly, are found by the Owsla Captain, Holly, of their old warren, who is in extremis, injured, and exhausted. He tells of the destruction of the Sandleford warren; Fiver’s visions were true after all. Holly and mentions a warren he found called Efrafa, but collapses before he cn elaborate. Shortly after, Fiver discovers the hill Watership Down, where the rabbits discover an empty space suitable to live in.

The rabbits settle in, developing their own warren, and Hazel is informally recognized as their Chief Rabbit. They befriend an acerbic injured seagull, Kehaar, who observes they have no females, and offers to survey the local area for them when healed. The rabbits also return to Nuthanger farm to free the does. Although some escape, Hazel is shot and presumed dead; however, Fiver returns to the farm in disbelief that his brother is dead. Hazel is eventually saved by Fiver and slowly heals.

Kehaar returns, having identified Efrafa as the main warren which may have females. Holly, who knows of Efrafa, begs them not to go there, describing it as a highly militarized and almost totalitarian state. Hazel, however, feels they have no choice but to seek does from Efrafa for their own long term survival as a warren; when a number of the rabbits visit Efrafa, Bigwig stays to infiltrate the colony. He meets the Chief Rabbit, the powerful General Woundwort, who makes him an officer of the warren. While Hazel, Blackberry, and Kehaar explore possible escape routes, Bigwig easily recruits several would-be escapees to his cause. Having arranged a meeting point with Kehaar, at sunset, Bigwig tackles the guard, whilst the rest of the escapees flee and evade the Efrafans.

Howver, Efrafa’s trackers find their trail several days later, and the General himself is coming recapture the escapees. Hazel attempts to reason and offers an alliance rather than conflict, but is dismissed and decides to fight. The Watership rabbits dig themselves in and are besieged; Fiver then slips into a trance in which he envisions “a dog loose in the woods.” His moans scare the Efrafans, but also inspires Hazel to free the dog from the farm and lead him to the warren to attack the Efrafans. Dedicated to killing Bigwig, the General is unconcerned and allows Hazel and three others to bolt; en route to the farm, Hazel offers his life for his warren’s in a silent prayer. They free the dog and taunt him to follow them uphill, but Hazel is caught by the farm cat—only to be saved by the farmer’s daughter, who loves rabbits.

When the Efrafans finally break into Watership Down, it is Woundwort who jumps in first; Blackavar is killed in a scruffle with him. After he finishes off Blackavar, Woundwort is ambushed by Bigwig. They fight to near exhaustion. Woundwort tries to persuade Bigwig to surrender, asking why he chooses to fight an unwinnable battle; Bigwig shocks the General by replying, “My Chief told me to defend this run.” Woundwort stammers “Your … Chief?”—having assumed that was Bigwig, and now imagining a rabbit yet bigger and stronger. Suddenly, the dog arrives, and rapidly kills most of the General’s soldiers. The General emerges and leaps to attack the dog.… No trace of him is found, and his memory becomes a ghost story used by rabbit parents to frighten their children into obedience.

The epilogue shows the warren some years later. Hazel is old and tired, but his warren is thriving. As stories of the warren’s early exploits—distorted and mythologized—are retold in the background, he is visited by a shadowy shape he cannot make out. The rabbit reveals himself to be the Black Rabbit of Inlé (or “Death”) and, it is implied, El-ahrairah, inviting Hazel to join his Owsla. In a reprise of other mystical scenes in the film, Hazel discards his body and follows the Black Rabbit towards the sun—which metamorphoses into Frith—and into the lapine afterlife.

Major cast

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