Bunny Lake is Missing
Posting about movies is a pretty rare thing for me (even though I watch tons of them!), in fact, I think this community only has two posts that are strictly about films (my post about the documentary Helvetica and ohmydearheart's post about Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, but I spent this evening watching Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) and I just had to post about it!
Preminger's film is an adaptation of Merriam Modell's 1957 novel (also called Bunny Lake is Missing and published under the pen name Evelyn Piper). It's beautifully directed with absolutely gorgeous opening credits by Saul Bass (he also did the title designs for The Seven Year Itch, The Man With the Golden Arm, and North by Northwest -- in my opinion, the selected works on his WikiPedia page reads like a greatest hits of graphic design in film).
The story centers around Ann Lake (Blanche, in the book) who has recently moved to England with her four year old daughter, Bunny. The to of them plan to live with Ann's brother, Steven (you may recognize him from his role as Dave in 2001: A Space Odyssey), a journalist who works as a correspondent for an American magazine. After drops Bunny off for her first day of school and returns to find her missing -- which is, of course, when things get interesting. Bunny's disappearance is complicated by the fact that she and her mother are such recent arrivals to England -- no one has really seen Bunny with the exception of her mother and Uncle, so the local police (and the viewer) are left to wonder whether or not Bunny is even real until things take a horrifying turn. (You should be aware that elements of this film might be triggering, I don't want to get too specific here because the film's triggering elements tie in very closely with the central mystery of the film, but if you don't mind being spoiled & don't want to risk being triggered, the film's WikiPedia page addresses these triggering elements).
The film makes for a particularly intense two hours -- I was seriously on the edge of my seat the entire time & I am almost never like that with movies. In fact, if I start watching anything after 9 pm, it's a safe bet that I'll be asleep long before the movie is over.
I've put a trailer for the film under the cut (nothing too spoilery!)
Click to viewThe trailer
The title sequence
Oh! & if you're a fan of the Zombies, the films features a few performances by them, which is an added bonus for some.