LWLies: What were your intentions when you made this film?

Malloy: My intentions were purely to document a tour that Jack and Meg had planned out for themselves. It was obviously a very interesting part of the world we were in and that was the appeal when Jack described the idea behind this tour. It was where they were headed that sounded as interesting as anything. Certainly the venues were old hockey rinks and theaters and there wasn’t much to them, but it was where they were placed in the world was the really the interesting part and for me as a filmmaker. You go and shoot bands at these venues and they tend to all look the same, you know, you could be anywhere in the world and once you’re inside one of these venues it’s two people playing music. The crowd and the atmosphere play a big part in it but those tend to blur together a little. For this film, knowing where we were in the world, it became as important to get the people and the places we were on film as much as to capture the live music and the band, so I think when we got there and I saw where we were it did become a big obligation to me  to paint the picture properly because I felt that where we were and the things we were seeing and the people we were meeting were as interesting to me as anything else going on. I feel like they are a big star in this film and a big presence in this film.

Did the shoot stress you out or were you able to buy into the spontaneity of it all?

I loved the adventure we went on and truly it was that. It was one of the most tiring trips I’ve ever been on, and I felt that none of the crew slept in the 20 days we were out there. Each day we would get on a flight, travel, land, jump right out and try and film as much as we could of the town. The band would do their unannounced secret show somewhere in the town and then we’d run there and get set up for the show and the band would play, always very very long amazing sets, and we would capture all of that, and then there’d be the after show and next thing you know we’re hitting the hotel very late with a ridiculously early call time and that just never stopped. There was never an off day or some downtime in the time we were out there. It was all at a feverish pace. Normally when you work with bands you’re thinking to yourself, ‘Man I wish we could get off this venue or I wish we could get something unique or something different, or I  wish we could get an interesting backdrop to shoot.’ With this trip I felt there was no shortage of that stuff. It was just happening around me left and right.

What do you think is the universal appeal of The White Stripes?

The White Stripes; they transcend things. First of all they’re so rooted in classic rock ‘n’ roll and blues and music that people young and old are in to, so I think their music comes from a very traditional place. But I think more than anything with this tour, what was so unique is that here are this huge band, an internationally massive band that over the 10 years have reached so many different places with their music and had every success imaginable. And they’re going up to this part of the world that few bands will ever play, Canadian or American. I mean, nobody really gets up to the places we were at. People go to Canada, play the big cities, and play to the people that are interested in their music, at a big or small level and then move to the next place. Now, here’s this band who are going to do something unique, probably just to challenge themselves. It’s important to me and it’s important to Jack White to go and do some things that feel different to make the process fresh again, and we rode into these towns where people knew there was something big going on that night but didn’t know what they were going to see and really got their minds blown. They probably showed up and were like, ‘yeah I wonder what this is about’ and out walks these two people and they just laid it out on the stage each night. And I could tell the band, on their tenth birthday, felt that this was something they had to do to make the process fresh again for themselves. They were feeding off of the fact that a lot of people in that audience had never heard of them, and it was like going back in time to the days when they first starting playing as a band and were able to go out there and give an audience a night they would never forget.

The White Stripes music has become such a part of popular culture over the last 10 years. Do you think the film helps people who have heard the music a lot to rediscover it?

Yeah I think that’s one thing I’m most proud of with this film. For instance, my Mum watched it last night for the first time ever. She doesn’t know much about The White Stripes apart from that I’ve worked with them, so she came to the film with a little bit of an education, but not much. She was just captivated by their relationship and how they looked at each other on stage. You can’t help but become lost in who they are and what they’re doing and how they are dressed, and how two people can make this type of noise. I feel this band has continually in their career made themselves a bit larger than life, and every time someone asks ‘Is Jack White the real deal,’ something like this comes out and sets the record straight. I think this film sets them at the top of rock ‘n’ roll and makes them larger than life once again. They deserve it, and all I did was go out and capture what they were doing.

How much did you try and reveal their relationship, which has always had such mystery to it?

I got an incredible invitation into a very important and emotional chapter of their lives. It was a beautiful way for them to spend 10 years together and that’s all I really caught – them at a time when they were very open about who they are and were musically expressing themselves very purely. I wasn’t really trying to expose anything. What I got was very raw. They let their vulnerabilities into the film – the highs and the lows and everything in between and I think that’s what makes it what it is. The thing about this film is that you’re probably going to get more of The White Stripes, but you’re probably not going to get enough of what you wish you knew. With them, you always hope to know what the secret is, and they just never seem to give on that.

Two years ago most people, aside from Harry Potter enthusiasts, had no idea who the man was. Now he’s hounded wherever he goes. While this year’s Orange Rising Star Award went to his Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart, and deservedly so, there is no other actor whose life depicts its literal meaning greater than Pattinson.

But fame is fickle; it’s expected that the Twilight saga will wrap up at the end of 2011, so where will that leave its stars? Inundated with scripts now they are household names, Stewart chose wisely with her in-between films; one might argue that she knew it was time to prove herself as a ’serious actor’. The same could be said for Pattinson… except that, post-Potter, his non-Twilight films thus far have been box office disasters.

How To Be, in which Pattinson plays Art, a musician having an early twenties crisis, and Little Ashes, for which he acquires a questionable Italian accent as Salvador Dali in a romanticised biopic of the artists early life, were both filmed before the first Twilight instalment, but released, presumably for the cash-in, afterwards. However, they were critically ignored and, despite the Brit boy’s new found success, vastly underperformed both at the box office and in DVD sales.

Why they haven’t done well is a matter of opinion, but the fact is while Stewart might be criticised for appearing moody, at least her job is given the attention it deserves. In Pattinson’s case the media is far more interested in picking apart his personal life than his professional one. His acting skills are rarely panned, they’re just ignored; it is assumed that audiences would rather know what hair gel he uses.

Time for a new film then: Pattinson stars opposite Lost star Emilie de Raven in romantic drama Remember Me, out next week. It is his first outing since becoming an undead vampire, but whether anyone will take it seriously remains to be seen.

Indeed, despite the relentless production-publicity cycle of the Twilight films, Pattinson found time this year to sign up to three new projects; Unbound Captives (also starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz), Water For Elephants (Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz) and Bel Ami, which he’s currently filming in London alongside Uma Thurman and Christina Ricci.

So, gone are the days of budget indie filmmaking with a cast of unknown college students; Pattinson has bagged some big roles to prove himself as a versatile and promising young actor, which in all respects is what he is. But such is the fame machine that if, by the end of 2011, the world is still talking about who the gossip rags say he had dinner with the night before rather than his standout performances, Pattinson is unlikely to be remembered for being much more than everyone’s favourite teen vamp.

LWLies: Where did the idea for Logorama come from?

Houplain: The genesis of the concept first arose when Antoine Bardou-Jacquet and I collaborated on a video for Alex Gopher called The Child that was based on the idea of creating New York City completely out of logos. After that we were put forward for a music video for Télépopmusic. We realized that we could apply a similar principle but develop the concept further. Our world can be represented with logos. They can symbolize everything: characters, animals, vehicles, plants, graphic shapes… We scripted a concept about a culture clash between the East and the West using logos as the language and tools of that conflict. An opposition of logos, identities, politics, colours between these two super powers. This time, though, the project never took off. Later we were asked to make a video for George Harrison and reworked the core idea of a city made of logos, brand mascots and instantly recognizable corporate identities. The story was about the destruction of the city – cyclones, floods and torrential rain stripping these logos from the environment and carrying them away as a sort of cleansing, a new beginning. Then, sadly, George passed away and the idea disappeared with him. That is when I realised we would never sell the idea; H5 had to produce the film directly ourselves. I then looked with Nicolas Rozier for producers who would have the guts to produce such a film, without any censorship. We met some short film producers, including Nicolas Schmerkin (Autour de Minuit Production). With him, we managed to bring together a few financial partners (Mikros Images, Addict Film), to be able to make this film.

And when did the film go into production?

We started the production in 2006. We succeeded in putting together a production team who agreed on the signification, meaning not censoring ourselves in terms of the brands we chose or the icons and logos we were going to use. We had to take the idea to its logical conclusion without fear of the possible reaction. From there the project became about creating a real picture of modern and contemporary society through two of its most powerful visual elements: logos and visual medias. The film is based on the same concept as Pop Art.

Can you talk a little about the animation process? What was involved exactly?

Firstly, we took the illustrated storyboards and converted them into an animatic. From there, with our editor Sam Danesi, we refined the sequences using camera movement references taken from blockbuster action films. That allowed us to define the dynamics of each scene more tightly. When there was a particular camera pass or movement that we couldn’t find we actually shot mood and reference footage ourselves using a Sony 3CCD camera – for instance some of the scenes with the Pringles in the restaurant. Once that first pass was complete we gave the footage to the 3D team at Mikros Images to use as a basic animation for rotoscoping. At the same time they had some people working on modelling the logos we had selected for the main characters in 3D. The first footage we created was without dialogue so there was a separate process to refine the facial animation, focusing on lip movements and so on, once we’d finished recording the vocal performances.

The film is full of cultural references, how do you expect them to be interpreted?

I think this is something that will largely be dependent on the particular cultural references of the viewer and the country they live in, whether America or France or Switzerland for instance. The same logo can mean different things to different people depending on their contextual associations. I think a good example of that is the fact that Ronald McDonald is depicted carrying the gun used by the RAF (Red Army Fraction/Baader Meinhof), and that obviously won’t have the same meaning or evocative power for someone who isn’t German. On top of those associations there are the ones we can’t predict, and those will only emerge as the film continues to receive a wide audience who have their own personal response to it.

Do you see the film as more of a condemnation or a pastiche of our consumer culture?

Having come up against so many barriers along the way we decided to develop the concept into a short film because it was the only way to avoid censorship. As our lawyers told us, it was a mistake, and they all tried to prevent us from doing it. That only made us want to develop the concept even more. And whether it was Hervé or I, and then the co-producers, everybody got behind the film and pushed us to remain true to the idea. So, in answer to your question, the film is not merely a critique of brands or an anti-capitalist statement, it also highlights the importance of fighting for complete freedom in the creative process. In the modern world, where everything adheres to rules, and obeys laws about intellectual property, let’s at least keep this freedom, the freedom of speech, that should be above all the laws. It should be one of the Human Rights. How can a brand hypothetically forbid or attack this film? I think it would be crazy. So, yes, in that respect, the film is subversive. To be honest, I do find it strange that this kind of film hasn’t been made before though. However, and this is really important, the film is also a tribute to the logos, but not to brands.

Considering that Hollywood is built on a capitalist model, what do you make of the irony of the film receiving recognition for the Academy?

There is a certain irony, but it shows above all that they had to assess themselves with a sense of humour. Perhaps also because they are immersed in this world of brands longer than us they’re in a better position to really enjoy the self-referential game playing that’s part of the film’s objective.

What do you hope people will take away from the film?

We played with brands, identities, and created a world that speaks of our time. Above and beyond anything else we want people to enjoy the film. I think we’ve managed to do something that a lot of people would have liked to by taking these brands into a huge visual playground and then breaking the down and rebuilding them to create something new out of the chaos. In a way it feels like we’ve used logos like Lego.

What is the ongoing objective of H5?

We want to continue to experiment. We have another short film set in Russia and the Arctic Circle that’s in progress. Visually it’s very different from Logorama in the sense that the aesthetic is very clean. On top of that we’re developing exhibitions with museums and working on new material with other people, musicians, designers and so on. I think it’s really important that H5 doesn’t get locked into a system. Over the last 10 years we’ve gone from movie clips, to music promos, advertising projects and now short films. Now we want to move on to experiment with other media and explore different historical periods. It’s about being playful with what we create and maintaining a rigorous focus on developing strong ideas.

What inspires you as a creative collective?

Showing romanisation. You have to fight the ease of falling into a kind of habit, and try to talk to people with the languages and technologies of our time. This is not to be modern, but to be contemporary. To avoid traditionalism. At the same time it’s really important for us to retain independence because that’s when we create the most effective and stimulating work for our clients – whether they’re luxury brands or musical artists. Alongside those sorts of projects we’re working on our own concepts and that can take a lot of time and energy when you’re trying to push ideas that go beyond the current understanding of production processes or protocols. Logorama was a good example of that, I think. The hardest thing is not to have the idea, but to pull it off and take it to where it needs to go. I think that’s what motivates people at H5. Different projects with different combinations of people. It takes passion and desire.

Logorama was directed by H5 (François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain). Houplain/H5 is repped internationally (excluding France) by Stink.

Hopefully we’ll be back on the ball next week…

The cast: Jeff Bridges, Michael Sheen, Garrett Hedlund, John Hurt, Olivia Wilde.

The pitch: 25 years after the disappearance of computer genius Kevin Flynn (Bridges), his son Sam (Hedlund) ventures to the dangerous cyber world of Tron to find him.

The strapline: The Game Has Changed.

The buzz: Disney couldn’t have picked a better time to premiere a second, full-length trailer for this winter sequel. Its star just picked up an Oscar and its first 3D IMAX film broke box-office records recently. They’ll surely be cracking open the Jesus Juice at the House of Mouse. Their marketing team has expertly cranked up expectations, premiering this trailer to a theatre full of LA bloggers 10 days ago and letting the internet do the rest.

Reasons this could be good: Even to those of us a little too young to be enamoured of the 1982 original, those neon lines and futuristic fonts bring a little frisson of nostalgic glee. The production design of this film looks truly beautiful, and when you add 21^st century 3D FX to the mix it could be revolutionary. Wisely, this promo doesn’t give too much away, meaning there’ll be plenty to look forward to come December. Also, Jeff Bridges: is there anyone who doesn’t love him?

Reasons this could be bad: Remember all those Matrix rip-offs that came out in the early part of the last century? Well, here’s the 3D version. This trailer could have been modelled on the promo for the 1999 sci-fi sleeper hit, with the moody, disillusioned hero finding his true value inside a virtual world. Only this one’s made by Disney, so it’s likely to have family values pasted all over it. It’s also good to see they’ve cast someone – Garrett Hedlund – who appears to have all the acting skills of Keanu himself.

We think: We’ll admit to being underwhelmed by the idea of this sequel to a fondly-remembered but actually fairly patchy ’80s videogame rip-off. It’s fair to say that this trailer has completely revised our opinion. Odd splices of action, with a gloomy dystopian feel and a foreboding soundtrack ratchet up the excitement for anyone with even a passing lust for sci-fi. If that translates to the finished film, this could be a doozie. Either way, Disney is doing all the right things to build up the hype. You read it here first: this is 2010’s Avatar.

Music: That would be Daft Punk, who have created a soundtrack especially for the film.

Did you spot?: The shot of Bridges at 01:38 is the ‘young Kevin’, digitally created by the same boffins that made Brad Pitt into a 17-year-old version of himself for Benjamin Button. Also, spot them acknowledging their debt to The Matrix at 02:16: “woah”

Odds of you seeing it: Were you one of those people who bought a leather coat after seeing The Matrix in 1999? If so, you’ll be queueing up in your neon-lined jumpsuit come December.

There is no denying that Hit Girl, played by 13 year old Chloe Moretz (who you may remember from 500 Days of Summer), will shock audiences with her excessive profanity and liberal use of weaponry throughout the film. But that’s the whole point; Kick-Ass doesn’t try to reinvent superhero movies, it satirises them, in a bizarrely quite touching way.

When we meet Hit Girl and her father Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage), possibly the strangest superhero coupling to exist, and get to know their characters and the motivation behind their desire to kill drug baron Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong), it somehow all makes sense. It is a ridiculously exaggerated version of what might really happen but at the same time it is believable because the reason why these ’superheroes’ do what they do essentially boils down to very relatable emotions: anger, betrayal, fear and jealousy.

Kick-Ass is a romanticised view of fantasy we’d all love to be a part of. From the overstated wardrobe of the superhero cast to the overacted fight scenes to the reason Kick-Ass himself exists, in this strange world of bright colours and comic book violence, Hit Girl doesn’t seem so out of place.

In a recent interview with MTV Moretz said: “If I ever uttered one word that I said in Kick-Ass, I would be grounded for years! I would never in a million years say that. I’m an average, everyday girl.” If the actor, who is several years younger than the audience of this film will be given its 15 certificate, portraying the character is able to distinguish between fiction and reality, between how she behaves on-screen and how she should behave off-screen, are we really going to assume that young moviegoers will not be able to do the same?

It will be fascinating to see how the number of child vigilantes across the world sharply increases after Kick-Ass’ release. If the tabloids are right, someone should probably forewarn the armed forces.

Survival of the Dead tells the story of a fictional island, Plum, off the coast of Delaware. For six days the dead have been walking around, and two rival families, the Muldoons and the O’Flynns, argue about how to deal with them. Muldoon (Richard Fitzpatrick), dressed in cowboy get up with Wichester rifle in tow, wants to chain up the zombies (most of which are part of the Muldoon tree) and wait for help, whereas sea dog O’Flynn (Kenneth Welsh) thinks point blank execution would be a better solution.

Outnumbered, O’Flynn loses the argument and is exiled with his cronies to the mainland where he plots his return by uploading a video on the Internet calling for help. A squad of soldiers hears that call. Lead by Sarge (Alan Van Sprang) the unit of stereotypes (lesbian hard nose, Latino cannon fodder, dimwit right winger and computer geek adolescent) the unit tools up and head for the island. Cue peppers of zombie obliteration that lack the spice, humour or originality of Romero’s earlier work.

For the rest of the film uneven performances pile up with the zombie kill count. The Canadian cast struggle to remember how to do an Irish accent, O’Flynn shrugs his shoulders when his twins get the bug, and Sarge completes the farce with annoying and hammy outbursts. Once again Romero delivers a brand of lurching ghouls and violence, but this time the delivery is feeble.

LWLies: We understand you made the film based on the life and death of (famous French producer) Humbert Balsan. Did you at any point consider making a biopic about Balsan or you were always focused on making a fiction based on him?

Hansen-Løve: I think it’s a real fiction. I’ve known about Humbert for a year – that’s quite short and I knew nothing about his private life and I didn’t want to make a biopic or a documentary. I wanted to make a fiction inspired by him and especially by his very specific presence and what I tried to do is catch his aura and also catch the very original spirit of his film society. Of course, the thing that is the most close to reality in my film is the last days of this film production and that’s for sure the point that is most close to reality. But all the other aspects of the film- private life and the children – are fictional. He had children but I didn’t know anything about their private relations when I wrote this film.

I read that Bela Tarr’s The Man From London was the production you refer to in Father of My Children?

I have never met Bela Tarr. I have seen some of his films that I love and I admire him a lot and I knew Humbert was producing this film and was having great difficulties with this film. I knew how important to him it was to produce this film. He was very proud about it, and I knew he was suffering a lot so what I kept from Bela Tarr was the symbolic importance it had for Humbert but I didn’t keep anything personal from him. I didn’t know him.

You talked about Balsan’s spiritual aura…

He was very criticised actually but he was very admired and loved. But he was loved for his charm – he had an incredible charm and sense of humour. He was very aristocratic, elegant. He had been in a film by Robert Bresson – Lancelot du Lac – and he had started as an actor and I think this was very important to him. Bresson was his spiritual father and the first time I had a discussion with him about Bresson and this was a subject we had in common. Also the fact that I had acted in a film before just like he had, even if it was not the same story, so we had both experienced the question of incarnation in film. He therefore had a very specific story and a very original story. I can’t think of any producers that have been actors before or have had this kind of story. But at the same time he was producing a lot of films – great films and small films – and he was producing them without money and he was running on empty, so the film-makers who were making these films were very angry against him most of the time, even if they loved him. They adored him but they hated him at the same time because he was producing so many films the films that were not very well produced. So it was a very typical scene with him to go to his office and see him being shouted at by a filmmaker. It was very typical. People laughed a lot about him, not at him, but there were a lot of jokes about because he was a funny guy, but after he died the story became serious.

In a scene after he dies one of his colleagues makes a reference to Walter Benjamin’s The Angel of History, the picture by Klee. What kind of significance does this have? Why did you bring this into the film?

It’s a bit anecdotal. Actually, to tell the truth, the actress who I love who reads this small text – it wasn’t in the script but she bought this text because she knew Humbert Balsan, the real one, and she told me it was a text that he read to her one day and she wanted to read it in the film. I never did this at other points in the film, so this was the only real moment in the film.

How did your career as a film critic (for Cahiers Du Cinema) inform your approach to the film? Were you constantly thinking about what we were going to say?

No, because I was a film critic for a short period, it was only a very brief experience and I never felt very self-assured as a film critic and to me it was more about learning when I was a film critic. It didn’t change my way of making films because when I started writing about films I already wanted to make them, so I used it as my own personal quest rather than it influencing me. But I think it’s the best of way of learning about films, better than film school.

Can you see yourself ever going back to being a critic?

Never. It’s not easy, you know? I’ve been asked a lot about what it’s like to make films as a women and to me it makes no difference but I wouldn’t say that as a film critic. I think it’s hard to be a woman and film critic. I think it’s harder than a film-maker.

Why so?

Because film critics, or at least the ones I met at that time, are very misogynist, and that’s absolutely not the case in the film industry.

Obviously the film revolves around Balsan’s death, and he is the only central male character in the film. His success and his death are bought about by his hubris, and the strongest characters seem to be women who have real clarity of thought. Do you feel this is a film about women primarily or do you not think gender comes into this at all?

I don’t think it is a film about women because the main character is still him. If the film is a portrait it is a portrait about him and even when he dies and he is not around anymore I try to say things about him and I still try to film his presence through his absence. But it is true that there are a lot of women in the film. It’s not an accident he has three girls rather than three boys. I don’t know… I really think the film is at the same time about virility and femininity because he’s very masculine, but at the same time the women are very prominent as well, so you have both aspects, both sides.

There’s a personal connection for me because I used to know a producer in England, and I think he sees himself as a bit of British Balsan.

Well, you know, a lot of producers see themselves as a version of Humbert. A lot of people who work in film find it a very positive image and they came up to me after Cannes and said ‘oh, it was me.’ He’s very charismatic and attractive, but of course his story is one of failure.

But it’s also a celebration of creation, right?

Yes, it’s about commitment – about someone who has dedication and faith in what he is doing and in cinema, and doesn’t want to make any compromises. This is why people want to see themselves in this image.

Like most indie horror films Borderland doesn’t skimp on the gore, and considering before the opening credits have even rolled you are treated to an eye gouging, arms being sawn off and a beheading, you soon get the idea of which direction this film is heading. But then again, Borderland isn’t like most horror films. You could argue it isn’t even a horror film, but what sets it out from any other Hostel type gore-fests is that it actually has a fairly decent, if slightly predictable story.

Violence and blood lust aside, what really makes the film so believable and frightening is Zev Berman’s screenplay; with faultless attention to detail when it comes to the creation of ‘Borderland’, a place that seems to exist neither in America or Mexico, but in a seedy suburb where anything goes. With some fantastic cinematography, including a seedy strip club, the intense claustrophobia of the barn shed and the epic grandeur of the film’s main torture chamber, the film stands miles apart from the trashy indie horror films we have become so accustomed to.

Trying desperately to avoid the cliché of other horrors, the lead characters are well thought out, each with their own unique personality traits. Ed (Brian Presley) is the token nice guy, the obvious survivor, who despite moments of madness comes out of the film relatively unscathed. Phil (Jake Muxworthy) provides the comic relief; he’s dim-witted and does exactly as he’s told, whilst Phil (Rider Strong) is the typical jock, mistreating women and generally being a lout. Although these may sound like fairly typical characters, Berman’s decision to focus on just three characters makes for some interesting character development – seldom seem in films such as this, making it more likely to appeal to audiences that might usually overlook the genre.

The film’s only real downfall is its ending, which in comparison to the rest of the film is weak and doesn’t give the audience a particularly satisfying pay-off. Whilst it’s understandable the film is meant to be based on real events, meaning they can’t completely over-blow it, a little bit of artist licence wouldn’t go a miss to add that much needed spark.

Borderland is by no means a masterpiece and it’s unlikely to score any big wins at any film festivals anytime soon, however a confident cast and a strong enough storyline coupled with the right amount of gore makes for a pleasing watch, just don’t turn the lights out.

If Stephen is on a picaresque journey into his past, Bunny serves as his dark half and irreverent therapist. This odd couple treks ever closer to the source of Stephen’s current trauma, joined by the Spanish drifter Eloisa (Verónica Echegui) who comes with her own shadowy doppelganger, and by a giant stuffed bear whose presence confirms the whole fairytale nature of the enterprise. Yet the stylised pop-up book of a world that Stephen conjures from the collected flotsam and jetsam of his house gradually gives way to a less malleable, less ordered reality, as Stephen lowers the defences of his carefully erected fortress and finally takes the titular bull by the horns – and while Bunny may be a phantasmagorical hybrid of memory and the imagination, that bull will turn out to be all too real.

There is a surreal absurdity to Bunny and the Bull that will no doubt call to mind King’s previous work in television’s The Mighty Boosh – as will the zany cameos from Julian Barratt as homeless zoophile Attila and Noel Fielding as dipsomaniac ex-matador Javier – but beneath all its layers of whimsy, this cock and bull story is grounded in genuine pain and torment. It’s a homemade cocktail that is bittersweet, but crazy good.