CRITERION COLLECTION: WATERSHIP DOWN

With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what had been thought nearly impossible: A faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams's classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces. With it's naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Richard Briers, and Denholm Elliott, Water ship Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.