The Oversexed, Cold-War Rabbits of Berlin

[Oliver]

Article and documentary about a fascinating footnote in Cold War
history -- the wild rabbits that used to thrive, undisturbed by man,
living in the heavily-mined no-man's-land inbetween the East and West
sides of the Berlin Wall:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/11/rabbit-a-la-berlin

(Their bodies were so light they never set off the mines, see?)

The rabbits also make a cameo appearance in the German fantasy film
'Wings of Desire', shot 2 years before the fall of the wall. According
to the director, often they'd spoil a take by shagging in the
background of the shot... :-D

[The Saprophyte]

Kind of like the Korean DMZ, which has turned into an impromptu nature
reserve.

--
The Saprophyte
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[Oliver]

I'll transcribe the director's amusing, rabbit-related remarks from
his commentary track on the (highly recommended) Criterion Collection
DVD of 'Wings of Desire':

"We put these rabbits there [in the Berlin Wall set] because there was
a giant population of rabbits living in that no-man's-land. They were
too light, they could tread on the mines without exploding them, so
there were millions of rabbits living there.

So, naively, we rented these rabbits and put them out there. You see
them there, somewhere in the background. And then these rabbits turned
out to be a giant problem, because all they ever did, whenever we were
shooting, was to -- they'd go for each other. I mean, they were just,
how do you say that, they were just f*cking all over the place, these
rabbits!

And they completely turned everybody's eyes away from the actors. Who
wants to see an actor having to do dialogue if in the background you
have these 2 rabbits going at each other furiously?

So then we tried to get them out of the set but we couldn't catch them
anymore..." :-)