"Testament of the Rabbit"

Created by: Ted Lyman
When: 1 pm Tuesday April 1 2003
Where: HCC Campus Theater, Palm Avenue and 14th Street

Conceived as a meditation on the complex relationship of time, family, and mortality, "Testament of the Rabbit" uses subtitles, live action, animation and optically manipulated imagery to explore the consequences of parenthood.

The film takes place in the context of a train trip through the Scottish Highlands. As the extraordinary scenery drifts by the protagonist slips into contemplation of the emotional and physical changes caused in his life by the birth of his children.

Lulled by the rhythm of the wheels on the track, his dozing mind visualizes the abstract series of images which is the heart of the film. This sequence is created through photographic degeneration, a process which gradually decays the original, representational image to high contrast forms and, finally, to blackness.

Animated in reverse, the phenomenon gradually pulls the audience from abstraction to reality. The intention is to create something like the childhood sensation of waking from a dream and breathlessly waiting for the formless beasts in one's bedroom to reassume their rightful identities as bureau, chair, and lamp.

The experience is designed both as an evocation of the psychological changes one undergoes as a parent and as a metaphor for the physical and mental decay one begins to feel at this time of life.