Le Lapin Jaloux (?)

Director: Sarah Oleksyk

My favourite No Festival Required screening of the year is always the selection of short films shown at the Phoenix Art Museum. Here's Selection 2010.

About as simple a classic love triangle as could comfortably be imagined, this is brought to joyous life by animator Sarah Oleksyk, who judging from her website is a multitalented illustrator. The only question really concerns which sex the rabbits in this story are, something that shouldn't matter in the slightest but sparked some debate here at Chaos Central. Perhaps it all depends on the sex of the viewer and other couples share the same disconnect. Maybe I should have taken a poll when we walked out of the screening today.

This is all about a powder grey girl bunny who lusts after the ripe and red boy bunny, only to be spurned from afar in favour of some third wheel yellow girl bunny. The slut. So powder grey sets into motion a plan that will lead hot red right to her burrow, but of course it all goes horribly wrong. At least it goes horribly wrong to begin with but bunnies are fickle critters so it all works out in the end. The details of how all this goes down are blissfully unfolded, with subtle tributes to genre stylings from spaghetti westerns to gothic horror. Dick Bruna was never like this.

It's a very human story of course, and you can rinse and repeat as often as you wish. Oleksyk's lines are elegantly simple, as simple and effective as the story. This is the only animation listed at her official website, if a YouTube applet counts as a listing, but there's plenty of other illustrations and comics to keep anyone happy. I can't say I'm a fan of her lettering but the graphic work is a delight and I hope she finds time amongst her obviously busy schedule to put together another animation.