New Wave filmmakers are given credit for the way that contemporary cinema has developed. French and Italian directors in the '60s were, and still are, given the most attention abroad for their work, but there are many films from Iran, East Asia and Czechoslovakia that are lesser-known gems. Milos Forman's filmography consists of many acclaimed films, including One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, but Loves of a Blonde marks the beginning of his worldwide popularity and his first Academy Award nomination. When the film premiered at the New York Film Festival, it was considered to be as endearing and classic as Truffaut's The 400 Blows, which had its premier a few years earlier. The prevailing formalistic approach to filmmaking is absent here; the film is simple, realistic, and shot in real-time.

With films that have been or are currently banned in their country of origin comes an instant intrigue in me. Apparently this film was banned for “exposing the harsh realities of East German society,” but that statement, seen on the back of the DVD cover, is a little ambiguous. While watching the film you do get a vague understanding of the politics and lack of justice in the judicial system of 1960s Germany; you begin to understand that the film's “anti-socialist” message could have come as a great threat. However, there is a lot left unexplained—a lot that you have to go and research on your own, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Somehow you don't mind being led into a haze because the film's heroine, a blacklisted 19-year old, is an astounding portrait of the system's failure. Her will to overcome the setbacks of an “opportunist” and unjust society gives you hope. It's that hope of something better and more democratic that could have been contagious, and was therefore silenced. Still, The Rabbit is Me is hailed as one of the most important New Wave films to come out of Germany.