The Hare School – Die Häschenschule: Jagd nach dem goldenen Ei (2017)

Directed by: Ute von Munchow-Pohl | 76 minutes | animation, adventure | Dutch voice cast: Jip Bartels, Job Bovelander, Christiaan Schreuder, Marcel Harteveld, Franky Rampen, Fauve Geerling, Ara Halici

Among our eastern neighbors it is a childhood classic, the children’s book ‘Die Häschenschule’, written in 1924 by Albert Sixtus and provided with illustrations by Fritz Koch-Gotha. ‘Die Häschenschule’ is about young hares who are in training to become an Easter bunny. Within a year, the booklet had already sold nearly 250,000 copies, spectacular figures for the time. The success of the book can be explained by the fact that ‘Die Häschenschule’ was able to give a completely new meaning to an everyday setting such as primary school, with hares that behave like people. That had never been seen before. Koch-Gotha, originally a graphic artist, then mainly focused on illustrating children’s books, remarkably often with hares and rabbits in the lead roles. Although ‘Die Häschenschule’ is now outdated, the story still appeals to the imagination, especially around Easter. The German film producer Dirk Beinhold used the almost 95-year-old children’s story as the basis for his film adaptation. Of course, the original narration was considerably polished and modernized. The result is ‘Die Häschenschule – Jagd nach dem Goldenen Ei’ (2017), a charming animation film that appears in Dutch cinemas under the title ‘De harenschool’.

The leading role in this German animation film is for Max, a hare boy who lives alone in the big city. He’s a typical city hare, who doesn’t like carrot juice and Easter eggs. No, give him soda and pizza. Max dreams of joining the coolest youth gang in town, the Madness Gang. He tries to impress the gang members with antics in a model airplane. However, he has little luck, because the plane crashes. He ends up far from the city, in a closed spot in the middle of the forest. Here he is taken care of by a group of young hares in old-fashioned clothes. They turn out to be students at the Hazenschool, a place that Max always thought only existed in fairy tales and where time seems to have stood still. The contrast with the city, where it is every man for himself, is enormous in this commune-like environment. The plane is a total loss and the hare school is hermetically sealed because a hungry fox family lives in the woods around it. So Max has little choice but to join the hare school, if only because only Easter bunnies know how to get out of the forest in one piece. But he misses the intense training the Easter bunnies in training have to undergo; the lessons are tough and bound by all kinds of rules. The disappearing trick is especially difficult to master. With the help of the tough hare girl Emmi, Max turns into a diligent student. But the foxes are not sitting still either. They do everything they can to steal the most precious possession of the Hare School: the legendary Golden Egg, from which the hares draw courage and strength. Without the Golden Egg, the Hare School is lost and an age-old tradition will disappear.

‘The school of hare’ knows how to connect the classic story of Sixtus and Koch-Gotha with modern times in an inventive way. The figure Max is completely contemporary and, just like modern people, has an individualistic attitude. In contrast, director Ute von Münchow-Pohl and screenwriters Dagmar Grübel and Dagmar Rehbinder set up the school of hare, where the hares still form a unit. The contrast goes even further: in the city it is drab and gray and life is hard; in the woods Max ends up in a warm fresh green bath, although he does not see it immediately. His tough attitude soon thaws, thanks in part to his friendship with Emmi and the impact that the mysterious and very wise teacher Hermine has on him. She is reminiscent of an Eastern teacher, not least because of her serene attitude and the sometimes cryptic wisdom with which she sprinkles. The message in ‘The school of hare’ is unmistakably present, but it is also not too obvious that it becomes disturbing. The animations are rock solid but with an eye for detail; you can clearly see that this film was made with a lot of love, even though the makers had only a modest budget available. ‘The Hare School’ tells a nostalgic story and gives it a modern twist. The result is a cheerful and sympathetic animation film that will surely get many people in the Easter mood.