Embleer hraka! (Watership Down)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	Watership Down
Date:	24/09/02 (1927 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Nepenthe film has a good cast,, is faithful to the feel of the book, and will feel "right" to fans

Disadvantages: The TV series hasn't,, isn't, and won't!

Two notes before I begin:

1) The title (it's Lapine, but I can't possibly translate on a family website - go and look it up!) and rating refer to the TV series. It probably deserves two stars on its own merits, but most people who watch it will be existing fans, so I'm taking another star off for the utter disappointment they'll feel. Were I rating the Nepenthe film, I would give it four stars.

2) Although a good chunk of this op *is* about the TV series, more is about the 1978 film version (hereinafter referred to as the "Nepenthe film" after its production company), and a fair bit more refers to the book on which they are both based. Were there a category for the Nepenthe version, I'd probably have posted there, though the awful navigation of the new Movies section leads me to wonder...

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Okay, you've all read the book, haven't you? If not, why not? Go and do it. Now. It's worthwile in itself, because - as I might have mentioned in passing before - Watership Down is, to pinch a title from elsewhere, a heart-breaking work of staggering genius. But if you're planning on watching this film, then you really ought to have a fairly thorough grounding in the story, as the Nepenthe version is clearly aimed those who know and love the novel. This is most obvious in the various Lapine words scattered about the place - if you don't know what "O embleer Frith" means, then Fiver's outburst won't have the power that it should. The TV version, on the other hand, is clearly aimed at kids who like fluffy bunnies and have lots of pester power.

I suppose that, for those among you too stubborn to take my advice and read the book, I'd better give an outline of the story, so here goes: a bunch of young bucks (not often that phrase gets used literally!) leave their home warren after Fiver gets a premonition of doom. Among the band are Fiver's brother, Hazel; Bigwi
g, an officer in the Owsla (a sort of Home Guard) and Blackberry, the thinker of the group. They come through many dangers to reach a new warren, but once there realise that they have no does - "and when we're gone, no warren", as Hazel points out. So they set off to find some who want to join them, first from a nearby farm and then from the terrible warren of Efrafa, ruled over with an iron paw by the fearsome General Woundwort...

The cast is star-studded to say the least - John Hurt's calm and sensible tones make him perfect for Hazel, Richard Briers *is* Fiver, the late lamented Roy Kinnear produces some wonderful moments of comedy as Pipkin (why many people say the film is lacking in humour I have no idea), Denholm Elliott is suitably creepy as Cowslip, and other parts are filled by the likes of Simon Cadell, Joss Ackland, Michael Hordern, Harry Andrews and Ralph Richardson. Not to mention Zero Mostel's Kehaar. Quite some line-up, that.

The TV series of 1999 also has a good collection of names - Dawn French, Stephen Fry, Jane Horrocks, Phill Jupitus... and two of the Nepenthe names make a return - Richard Briers as Captain Broom (*who?*), and for some insane reason, John Hurt as, of all rabbits, General Woundwort! Sorry, but I just can't cope with that particular change. One of the few redeeming features of the TV series is in the casting - Rik Mayall is perhaps even better than Zero Mostel for Kehaar.

Considering that there are only 90 minutes in which to dramatise a book which runs to well over 400 pages, the producers have done very well. A few characters are dropped - Buckthorn, Bluebell, Thethuthinnang and so on - and Cowslip takes over the "poet of doom" role from Silverweed (which is fine considering who's playing Cowslip!) - and, in perhaps a sadder loss, Dandelion loses his storytelling role, and becomes a runner pure and simple. In fact, the only story we hear in full is "The Bless
ing of El-Ahrairah", told right at the start by Michael Hordern, and presented in a stylised cartoon style slightly reminiscent of Australian Aboriginal art - we're obviously supposed to think "Dreamtime". One slight irritation is the (temporary) inclusion of Violet, which seems to have no other purpose than to stop the original band being all-male, ignoring the fact that such bands of wanderers *are* all-male in reality.

The TV series, however, is far less faithful to Richard Adams' original setup. The change that offended almost everyone was to humiliate poor old Blackberry by not only removing his distinctive facial markings and giving them to Hazel, but also turning him into a doe! However, there are other annoyances, the worst being the huge expansion of the role of the fieldmouse from the book (who wasn't in the Nepenthe film) - who has also changed sex (must be something in the water), and is now called Hannah. Jane Horrocks, as you'd expect, does a good voice, but the character shouldn't be there at all. Bigwig badly needs a haircut - his topknot seems to have turned into a lion's mane. And the drawings themselves have become cutesy and childish.

The artistic style of the main part of the film, however, is very different - hand-drawn animation on a sumptuous watercolour backdrop that is, with a few exceptions, extraordinarily accurate, even down to the shape of the fence-posts. Opinion is rather divided as to the quality of the animation itself, but I think it's fine, with my only concern being that certain rabbits - Hazel most particularly - seem to change colour quite a bit as time goes on. Perhaps this is deliberate, and supposed to represent his transformation from a young inexperienced buck to a doughty, tough leader.

Now then, the blood. The Nepenthe film is U-rated (in Britain, though it's a PG in the States), but don't let that fool you. Anyone who has read the book will kn
ow that Watership Down doesn't hold back when it comes to "nature red in tooth and claw". At various places in the book, rabbits (many of them on the "right" side, too) are shot, gassed, snared, killed by predators, maimed by other rabbits and so on. To their eternal credit, the producers resisted the temptation to "pretty things up" for a younger audience. It wouldn't be sensible to show this film to a toddler, but most older children can cope pretty well with this sort of thing provided that they have loving support when needed, and it's probably the adults who will have the most trouble with this film. When rabbits are killed, they don't turn into angels and float up into the sky: their blood runs free, their tongues loll out and their eyes stare blindly. When they're scratched, the marks are painted vivid red. And so on. (This is yet another point on which the TV version fails - it's much too "safe" in its depictions of violence.)

The respect that the Nepenthe team had for the book shows itself too in the dialogue - a great many of the rabbits' phrases are taken word for word from the novel, and I'm especially pleased that they have kept in one of my favourite sentences, which is in context extremely moving: "My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today". (This is another occasion on which you need to have read the book to get the full effect: "the Thousand", "elil" in Lapine, is rabbit shorthand for their many predators.)

There are of course faults other than the ones I've mentioned with the Nepenthe film, perhaps the most irritating being the way in which the whole of the climactic struggle against the Efrafans is squashed into about ten minutes. It's as though the producers meant the film to be a quarter of an hour longer, and were suddenly told that they ought to get a move on as the light was going or somet
hing. It probably works better in the cinema, where the drama of the occasion makes up for the shortness of the "act". It's a minor quibble, though, and is certainly much preferable to the bitty, three-minute-attention-span appraoch of the TV series.

So, to sum up. Watership Down is an extremely difficult book to film, and the Nepenthe team have done a very fine job in getting as close as they have to the glories of the novel. It's a pale reflection of the book's luminous brilliance, but that's really no surprise - it still qualifies as one of the most interesting animated films of recent decades. The TV series, on the other hand, is a betrayal of all that Watership Down stands for. Strong words, but those who have read the book will understand. The desire to make the story "more relevant to a modern audience" (a phrase that made my heart sink when I read it, even before the series was broadcast) and to tone down the violence has overridden the desire to be faithful to Adams' vision, and what we're left with is the sort of "fluffy bunnies' adventures" tale that is the very thing Watership Down is not. If it has a saving grace, it is Rik Mayall's Kehaar, but even this cannot save it from failure. Many - perhaps most - Watership Down afficionados cannot even bear to watch the TV series, and you won't miss much if you should join them. Read the book, then watch the Nepenthe film - then you'll understand.

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