Watership Down is a 1978 animated film directed by Martin Rosen and based on the book by Richard Adams. It was largely financed by Jake Eberts’ company, Goldcrest Films. After a slow start upon release, it became the sixth most popular film of 1979 at the British box office.
The film featured the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Harry Andrews, Simon Cadell, Nigel Hawthorne and Roy Kinnear, among others, and was the last film appearance of Zero Mostel, as the voice of Kehaar the gull.
Art Garfunkel’s British No. 1 hit, “Bright Eyes” which was written by British singer and songwriter Mike Batt, was also featured, although in a different arrangement from the version released as a record. The musical score was by Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson.
After the genesis story rendered in a narrated simplistic cartoon fashion, the animation style changes to a detailed, naturalist one, with concessions to render the animals anthropomorphic only to suggest they have human voices and minds, some facial expressions for emotion and paw gestures. The animation backgrounds are watercolors. Only one of the predators, the farm cat, is given a few lines, the rest remaining mute.
Synopsis
Set in the English countryside, Watership Down opens with a narrated prologue establishing the Lapine culture and mythology, describing the creation of the world by the sun god “Lord Frith,” who gives many animals the instinct to hunt the rabbits, but makes the rabbits and their prince, “El-ahrairah” agile and smart survivors. The film then switches from the cartoon narrative to a realistic-looking story for the remainder of the film. Fiver, a young runt rabbit with prophetic abilities, foresees the end of his peaceful rabbit warren and asks others to leave with him. Fiver and his older brother Hazel attempt to persuade their chief rabbit to have the warren evacuated and moved elsewhere, but they are dismissed, and attempt to recruit individuals instead. The group meets resistance from the warren’s Owsla, or military, but eight manage to fight and escape: Fiver, Hazel, the burly ex-Owsla officer Bigwig, the cunning Blackberry, the smallest rabbit Pipkin, Dandelion, Silver, and the only female, Violet. Eventually, the rabbits stop to rest at a nearby field, where Violet is killed by a nearby hawk.
After crossing a road, evading a hunting dog, and escaping from a rat-infested cemetery, the band meets a rabbit named Cowslip, who comes from a warren of what appears to be friendly rabbits. The rabbits are invited inside Cowslip’s warren for food. The majority of the group is content and grateful for shelter, but Fiver senses something wrong and soon leaves. Bigwig follows him, taunting, but becomes caught in a snare. Fiver attempts to get help from Cowslip and the rest of his warren, but he is dismissed. The Sandleford rabbits discover that the warren is fed by a farmer, who occasionally snares rabbits in return for his food and care from predators. Bigwig passes out, still trapped, and after he is released the rabbits assume he is dead; however, he awakens moments later. On Fiver’s advice, the band moves on with a profound new respect for the seer’s wisdom.
The rabbits discover Nuthanger farm, which contains a hutch of female rabbits, does. Hazel realizes that females will be needed to begin a new warren, but the rabbits are forced to leave by the appearance of the farm’s cat and dog. Hazel promises to return, and the rabbits set off again. They are unexpectedly found by the Sandleford’s Owsla Captain, Holly, who is injured and at the point of death. He recounts the destruction of the Sandleford warren, proving Fiver’s visions to be true, and collapses after mentioning a warren called Efrafa. Shortly after, Fiver discovers the hill Watership Down, where the rabbits discover an empty space suitable to live in.
They settle in, developing their own warren, and Hazel is informally recognized as Chief Rabbit. They befriend an acerbic injured seagull, Kehaar, who offers to survey the local area for females. Meanwhile, the rabbits return to Nuthanger farm to free the does, but as they make their escape, Hazel is shot by a farmhand and presumed dead. Fiver, following a vision telling him that his brother is alive, returns to the farm just in time to find and save Hazel. Kehaar returns, having found Efrafa as a main warren which may have females. Holly, who knows of Efrafa, begs them not to go there, describing it as a highly militarized and totalitarian state. Hazel, however, feels they have no choice but to seek does. Bigwig decides to infiltrate the colony. He meets the Chief Rabbit, the powerful General Woundwort, who makes him an officer of the warren. Bigwig easily recruits several would-be escapees to his cause. Among them are Hyzenthlay, an outspoken, rebelious doe, and Blackavar, a male rabbit who was wounded and permanently scarred by Efrafa’s Owsla to be an example in order to dissuade any rebelious rabbits. They soon flee Efrafa, with the help of Kehaar and the other Watership Rabbits. However, their union is short-lived. Efrafa’s trackers find their trail several days later, following them to Watership Down, and the General himself has come to recapture the escapees.
Hazel attempts to reason and offers an alliance, but when he is refused, he decides to fight. The Watership rabbits dig themselves into their own warren to be safe and are besieged. In all the commotion, Fiver slips into a trance, in which he envisions “a dog loose in the woods.” His moans scare the Efrafans, but he inspires Hazel to free the dog from Nuthanger and lead him to the warren to attack the Efrafans. Several of the rabbits taunt the dog into following them uphill, where the dog will be let upon the Efrafans. When the Efrafans finally break into Watership Down, Woundwort jumps in first. Blackavar attacks him, but Woundwort quickly overwhelms and kills him. Woundwort is soon ambushed by Bigwig, and the two fight to near exhaustion. Woundwort tries to persuade Bigwig to surrender, but Bigwig defies him. Suddently, the farm dog arrives, having been led to the warren by Hyzenthlay; the dog goes into a blood-rage and quickly kills most of the Efrafan rabbits. The General emerges and leaps to attack the dog; later, no trace of him is found, and his memory becomes a ghost story used by rabbit parents to frighten their children into obedience. All of the rabbits of Watership Down are safe at last.
The epilogue shows the warren several years later. Hazel is old and tired, but his warren is thriving. As stories of the warren’s early exploits—distorted and mythologized—are retold in the background by new rabbits, he is visited by a shadowy shape he cannot make out. The rabbit reveals himself to be El-ahrairah, the mythological rabbit trickster, inviting Hazel to join his Owsla. In a reprise of other mystical scenes in the film, Hazel discards his body and follows him towards the sun—which metamorphoses into Frith—and into the afterlife.
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