Sometime in 60s/70s I saw on late night TV a movie about a man who finds/saves a rabbit and then goes through a series of happenings when he refuses to part from the rabbit. In one film section he is put in prison, the rabbit put in a cage and then the film cuts to an empty cage with a hole punched through the cage mesh and then you see an empty prison cell with the cell window bars with a large hole blown through. The film seemed to be Norwegian in my memory but could be other Scandanavian country, Sweden? The moral seemed to be about not giving up on special relationships - this was not a 'kinky' man loves rabbit but more about the nature of friendship and bonds. Quite a lot of scenery and moralising/preaching from authority figures telling the cenral character he was being foolish and stubborn.
Any ideas?

The Year of the Hare Jäniksen vuosi (1977) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076252/)

Ah, just goes to show how vulnerable memory can be over time - Finnish was not what I remembered and the 'rabbit' was not exactly right either!

Many thanks for the link to the plot line site, it brought quite a flood of memories back about the film - strange that one film seen late night all those years ago should have stayed in my mind, maybe a tribute to the director etc.

Can you point me to a reliable source for DVD/download? A quick look at Amazon and another couple of sites didn't come up with anything...

Fingers crossed...