Paul King is a man known to most as the director of every episode of the surreal, hilarious cult series The Mighty Boosh. Mixing the comedic talents of Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt with the trippy visuals of King made one of the most memorable unique shows in years. The film, The Bunny And The Bull, written and directed by King, shows very much a continuation of the trippy world of Boosh, but also a great departure.
The film follows Stephen (Edward Hogg), a shut-in who collects and stores unnecessary items and lives on a strange daily routine inside his house. However when this routine is broken, he begins reminiscing surreall visions of the past, how he and his friend Bunny (Simon Farnaby) attained money to go on a trip across Europe and the shenanigans they encountered, specifically gaining another companion, a frustrated spanish waitress Eloisa, as well as Bunny deciding to take on a Bull like a matador.
For people who are fans of The Mighty Boosh, they will discover that it mighty have similarities, but actually takes a different route. There is reason for the surreal images, being memories, the characters arent interchangable, as well as underneath all the surrealness, a sensical plot structure.
It does retain much of the Boosh humour, one which is unexpected, eccentric and often creepy in the most positive way. However, the film isnt supposed to be entirely comedy, instilling a great dramatic core, which moves from tragic and sad to one which is both touching and life affirming, something which Boosh lacked due to its priorities being on surreal humour and music. You can see this difference purely because it is a product solely of Paul King, and shows greater range than before as a writer-director.
With a great script, the visuals help give it greater impact, as a recollection of a real events, using bluescreened backgrounds, cartoonish sets and animations, rather than just making a film in real location which is not only visually stimulating, but adds to the appeal of the film as a whole.
Edward Hogg as Stephen conveys suitable emotional fagility and feebleness, and is thus believable. Even better is Simon Farnaby as Bunny, (known to Boosh fans as Harold Boom the Bizarro version of Barratt’s Howard Moon in the episode The Power Of The Crimp), who is hilarious as the insufferable friend who fearlessly gambles with almost everyone he meets for reasons mostly unclear as well as trying to have sex with every female he meets. The two create an interesting alternate dynamic reflective of Vince Noir and Howard Moon in The Mighty Boosh, here the one who looks like Moon has all the luck and the women, whereas the Noir-a-like is shy and unfortunate.
Also good is Veronica Echegui’s Eloisa, who makes for a deliciously kooky female interest, whose broken English is a laugh, especially her constant use of “Are you fucking my face?”
Its also a treat to see Boosh cast scattered in the piece, with Richard Ayoade, known as Saboo from Boosh and Moss from The IT Crowd, who is briefly seen as a drole shoe museum curator, Julian Barratt, (Howard Moon from Boosh) as Attilla, a Russian sounding drifter who has a perchant for milking dogs as flirting with a stuffed bear sculpture and also Noel Fielding (Vince Noir from Boosh) as Eloisa’s outragious matador training brother Javier. It wouldve been great to see more of these three in the film, but for what small parts they had, they were very entertaining.
In the end, the film is a fantastic trip into the mind, like Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine Of A Spotless Mind, but instilled with the unique visions that King has created, a great British Booshy humour as well as an unexpected, emotional depth. Its a film that not only fans of The Mighty Boosh would enjoy, but someone who has no clue what that show is, its a very enjoyable trip.
4/5
