‘The Rabbit Hunt’ Quietly Tracks Tradition and Modernity

Rabbit Hunt

Hunting season blends primal history and the needs of the now.

In the Florida Everglades, hunting rabbits during the harvest has been a century-long tradition. Bashing them with sticks, dressing them, and selling them to the neighbors is a part of the regional history – even when everyone’s browsing Instagram in between each step.

Patrick Bresnan, fitting some poignant anthropology into his tightly-shot documentary, films one season’s session in The Rabbit Hunt. From start to finish, from the teens riding hoverboards to chasing fleeing bunnies with their hunting staves, Bresnan finds a peaceful stability.

The video is a bit graphic – especially if you’re a rabbit fan – but the small, quaint piece of American culture is worth every second of quiet observation. If you’re a fan of Errol Morris’s small-scale, slice-of-life docs, The Rabbit Hunt is a nice taste of an up-and-coming documentarian’s flavor.

Jacob Oller: Jacob Oller writes everywhere (Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Playboy, FSR, Paste, etc.) about everything that matters (film, TV, video games, memes, life).