Night of the Carrots (1998)

Plot Summary

Diego the bicyclist waits to check into the PGI hotel, where each room's inhabitant seems more bizarre than the last, and the rabbits on the top floor have discovered the secret of voodoo, using electronics and carrots. Can the rare and unpredictable night of the carrots save everyone, or will their connections to the room's electrical sockets restrain them too much? Will Diego find love with an egg that speaks incessantly in German? Will the cellist, who is actually a room full of a gelatinous substance, affected in some way by buttons labeled K, G, and B, have dreams that explain everything? Or will the audience just leave scratching their heads? Not all questions get answered.
- Written by Jon Reeves <jreeves@imdb.com>
Porgandite öö (1998) - Plot Summary - IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0219977/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl (13.06.2014).

Pärn seems preoccupied with rabbits, carrots, and the Conspiracy Theory that there is some overseeing element controlling our lives: the belief that THEY are responsible, whether it be Big Brother, Extraterrestrials, The Illuminati, or as this film reveals... Rabbits. The presence of a controlling influence directs their interests and our world. However, even they are not in complete control. The rabbits cannot control their transformation into carrots and are unaware of their location on the top floor of PGI. This also makes them unaware of the full consequences of their own actions and its impact upon themselves. A crux of the film- power structures, influence, desire, and awareness.
Julia Burns
Burns, J. (2005). Porgandite Öö. Night of the Carrots. Metro Cinema Publications Number Two, March, lk 20-21.

Night of the Carrots examines the effect of computers and the Internet on contemporary society, as well as the cult of celebrity. The story finds crowds of people, led by the protagonist, Diego, trying to get into a sanitarium-like institution called “PGI.” It’s not clear why these people want in to PGI; as the narrator says, “Being contenders was their real aim because once they were in they would have nothing to do.” In each of PGI’s rooms we meet a variety of bizarre characters who want only to escape. The occupants each have a personal dream that, they soon discover, they cannot realize because they are literally plugged into their rooms.
Escape from PGI is possible only during one night when all the rabbits (who control the world through computers) turn into carrots. Contrary to the ominous warnings about a Y2K cataclysm that preceded the new millennium, Pärn instead saw the period during which he was making Night of the Carrots as a moment of temporary liberation. For one evening, Pärn suggests, we could step outside of our rooms, away from our computers and embrace the natural world and, with it, ourselves.
Pärn used his main characters in Night – each based on a famous individual – to examine the cult of celebrity. Just as the Internet offers virtual interaction and experience, within PGI’s seemingly glamorous world of fame, there is nothing but loneliness and longing. Not surprisingly, while the film resonates as a fable for our time about the plight of Everyman, it also poignantly echoes aspects of Pärn’s own life.
Robinson, C. (2005). Fat Chicks and Imbeciles: the films of Priit Pärn. Metro Cinema Publications Number Two, March, lk 7.