Saturday, April 12, 2008
Maria's Realization: The Rabbit is Me
The Rabbit is Me is a vibrant, French New Wav-styled film made in East Germany in 1965. It tells the story of a young woman who ends up falling in love with the judge who sentenced her brother to three years in prison for "inciting subversive activity," and these three words are fully all we ever really know about his supposed crime. There are echoes of Kafka's The Trial.
Maria's involvement with Judge Diester comes about through some coincidental circumstances, but that is barely noticed, because the heroine and the way her story is told are so engaging. Part of Maria's tale is told in voice over, filling in both the details of her young life and her spirited attitude towards the world. And then there is the direction by Kurt Maetzig. Like the best of the French New Wave, he tells his story with the language of the possibilities of cinema. The camera moves, there are sometimes jump cuts and even a dramatic use of freeze frame, but it never feels gimmicky or overly self conscious.
The film was banned shortly after it came out. It was created at a time when there was a brief support for artists to explore and when there was a brief consideration towards a bit of democratic reform in the time of Kruschev, but that quickly retreated by the time the film was ready to come out. Maetzig reviews the unfortunate circumstances in an interview on the DVD extras where he still seems a bit regretful of the situation his film found itself in. But ultimately there is a happy ending. We can see it today in crisp black and white with fabulous directing and a performance that rivals the heroines of Truffaut or Demys.
posted by well-executed buffet at 3:04 PM
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