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JUSTIN TANNER REVIEWS PIGGY
Director Carlota Pereda’s feature debut, “Piggy” is a beautifully photographed Spanish/French horror film that uses the familiar tropes of the ‘revenge’ plot to create an apt metaphor for our dark times — and our darkest impulses. Shot in the warm hues and detached tone of a fairy tale, Pereda draws us into the haunted center of her twisty plot, teases us with all the horrific possibilities lurking at its margins, then drags us, screaming, into a ghastly abyss of full-on ultra-violence in the last twenty minutes. Like the stories of the Brothers Grimm, or Heinrich Hoffman’s children’s book, “Shockheaded Peter” (in which a young boy has his thumb cut off for sucking it one too many times), “Piggy” is ultimately a cautionary tale, a ‘be careful what you wish for’ saga in which Sara, an overweight and bullied high school girl, finds herself with a golden opportunity to exact the perfect revenge. And, because the story neatly bridges the real and the symbolic, it’s possible to watch the increasingly grisly proceedings with a detached eye. Like the best thrillers of the year, ”Fresh” and “Barbarian”, we are able to comfortingly distance ourselves from the clinical brutality on offer with the reassuring security blanket of metaphor. This doesn’t make the horror any less visceral: When we finally arrive at the abattoir where Sara’s tormentors are receiving their comeuppance, director Pereda doesn’t shy away from the nitty-gritty of the gore effects.
But it’s not exploitative. In order for Sara to fully understand what revenge means — so she can make a life choice about the ‘need’ for retribution — it’s necessary for her to witness the cost, the fear, the degradation of her enemies. Only then can she choose what part (if any) she actually wants to play in the ‘reckoning’ portion of the bloody transaction. We first meet the plump and studious Sara (brilliant newcomer Laura Galán) standing wistfully behind the counter of her parent’s pricey butcher shop (natch), nervously chewing on her hair and trying not to be seen by the gorgeously thin and trendy gaggle of mean girls gathered outside. This clique of shockingly awful tormentors, which includes Claudia (an emotionally conflicted Irene Ferreiro) who pretends to like Sara only to upload embarrassing Twitter posts referring to Sara as the titular “Piggy”, proudly flaunt their sexy outfits and handsome motorcycle-riding boyfriends at the town pool where Sara is treated as a cootie-infested pariah, who must wait for everyone else to leave just so she can sneak in for a private soak.
It’s here where her merciless, plot-driving abasement takes place: She’s teased, nearly drowned (in the name of fun) and then (in an utterly harrowing sequence) forced to go on a semi-nude “walk of atonement” through the streets of the village. And just when we’ve had about as much humiliation as we can take, a handsome, sexy and unexpected rescuer enters, brandishing a towel for her to wrap herself in...and a plan for justice. During the few scenes where Sara interacts with men — not the vicious abusers who chase her and derisively call her "Bacon!" — but the two who talk to her with kindness and (in one case) genuine affection — Galán comes alive, her prettiness and charm surface, and it’s clear that an inner life exists, only needing a small act of emotional generosity to awaken. In one scene she shares a midnight joint with the handsomest boy in town, and her delightful case of the giggles is positively enchanting. But the main dilemma of the plot (and it’s a complex one) is what to do when the awakening of real love is coupled with a latent capacity for cruelty. In Sara’s case, the very object of her affection also becomes the instrument of her revenge. And she must make a quavering moral decision whether to give up her first chance at love, or allow her enemies to be vanquished, horribly vanquished.
I was tormented by bullies for being overweight when I was a kid. And I spent quite a few lost afternoons daydreaming in my bedroom about how I would like to exact revenge on those who had caused me so much pain. It usually involved trapping them in some underground torture chamber. The details I’ll leave to your imagination. And though it happened so long ago that I’ve forgotten most of the names and the faces entirely, the flushed sensory overload of being publicly abashed (on a daily basis, sometimes) has never left me. Even into my late fifties I can find myself in a situation where my thoughts turn to the harsh particulars of vengeance, (which lately manifest as “pouring vitriol” into an online discussion board so I can watch the ants of my disfavor run pell mell from the heat of the magnifying glass). And yet one of the greatest values of art is its ability to alter the course of our thinking: The morning after watching “Piggy” I removed the bookmarks to all my online sparring sites, erased my browsing history and waved goodbye to that ugly distraction. Well, at least for the next couple of hours. As silly as it sounds, Pereda’s admonitory film had (like all good fables) cast a genuine spell on me. And if you can look past the supersized portion of slaughterhouse bloodshed on display to the redemptive theme at its core, “Piggy” reveals itself to be a deeply moving experience, reminding us there is simply too much going on in the world to waste our breath trying to settle the score. STREAMING ON APPLE TV, AMAZON PRIME, GOOGLE PLAY, YOUTUBE AND VUDU
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