Featuring a truly unique conceptual framework, Michael Sarnoski's Pig is a beautifully constructed evocation of loss, one in which the mystery behind its characterizations and the circumstances that define them slowly reveals itself across the course of its narrative without not even one morsel of unnecessary exposition. Pig's text is one embedded with a sense of mystery and intrigue with just the right dash of opaqueness, a meticulous and methodically executed film in which the simplicity of its story feels existentially expansive. What struck me so much about Pig outside of its effective narrative and "heroes journey" is its hearty subtext related to how detached we've become from our social nature. Loss and trauma in many ways can lead us down two paths, one of apathy or one of empathy, and what Pig so vividly expresses is the need for us to not choose the latter but the former in order to live in a better world. While it may be considered a stretch to say this film is a sly commentary on consumerism/materialism, Pig unquestionably reveals the emptiness of modernity and how we cling to any form of accomplishment bestowed to us by commodification instead of simply seeking out a shared sense of empathy and love for what we do. Nothing really matters in the end, we are only here for a short period of time, and what Pig so masterfully does is deliver this message with a poignancy that isn't rooted in simply dread induction but oddly enough, despite is somberness, it left me at least with a sense of hope. In the film's final moments, it reveals these intentions - it isn't violence or revenge which leads towards resolving the mystery at hand but an appeal towards a cold, calculating character's empathetic core. Buried under his hardened businessman facade is a man himself who grieves and also suffers from a sense of loss. These are honestly just my initial thoughts, and perhaps someday I'll attempt to write something more expansive, but I'm certainly willing to say that PIG is one of the best American films I've seen so far this year, without question.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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