There’s really nothing here for most of us: Pig
A thriller drama written and directed by Michael Sarnoski in his directorial debut follows a chef turned truffle forager whose pig goes missing. Honestly, I was in because I expected Nicolas Cage to follow the path of a vengeance-driven John Wick, but with a pig. Maybe some truffle pasta. However, it’s a poetic, pensive, heroic story.
In 1928, Vladimir Propp, a Russian literary scholar and folklorist, analyzed hundreds of fairy tales and identified common themes. It turns out that not only can one find common structural elements, but there is a predefined order in which they occur. Not all of these functions need to be present in the tale, but if they are, the story will develop in a predefined order. First, absentation: the hero or someone close to him leaves the security of his or her home. For example, Little Red Riding Hood goes to see her grandma, Snow White goes to the woods, or Ulysses starts his journey. This also can be a metaphorical departure, such as the death of a close family member, a common trope in films. Next, interdiction: there is a forbidding command laid upon the hero, for example, don’t touch the spinning wheel. Of course, the hero does exactly that by violating the interdiction. The plot starts with the reconnaissance phase, in which the villain makes the effort needed to fulfill their role: they will acquire information or a treasured item and succeed in doing so.
Our hero is a former chef, Robin “Rob” Feld, living in a secluded forest with his pig, who helps him collect truffles. His only connection to the outside world is Amir, a young seller who comes on Thursdays to buy the collected truffles. One day, he is assaulted, and the pig is taken from him. This leaves Rob with a difficult decision: he must leave his cloistered sanctuary and find his pig. The trail points to the city, and even though Amir refuses to take him there, Rob insists. A careful reader will notice that all of Propp’s functions have been fulfilled so far.
Soon, we find out that the pig isn’t necessary for Rob to forage for truffles. He loves the pig, and the reason for the journey is purely emotional. Isn’t this the main motif in all fairy tales: the quest undertaken for the sake of love? Propp’s other functions will be fulfilled throughout the film, including a “magical” agent, which is often magical food in fairy tales, but in this case, it is going to be the chef’s magic. I’d like to leave this as an exercise to the reader.
I’m claiming here that throughout the film we’re mostly witnessing a fairy tale; that’s why the film hits the spot. Because it follows the recipe of success, and that’s the recipe with standard plot elements, compared to the culinary tried-and-tested recipes Rob has followed throughout his career. But unlike fairy tales, this movie has Cage in one of his best roles ever. I’ll repeat: I expected standard Nicolas Cage fun, I didn’t expect to write about this film at all. And yet, here we are. We all anticipated a bonkers story, but here we have a beautifully realized standard fairy tale, entangled with gastronomic magical moments, and crowned with great acting. Unpredictable Cage in a predictable plot – that’s what’s unpredictable.
Sarnoski’s directing creates a distinctive mood. The initial shot of the forest has a Stalker-like, apocalyptic feel, and yet the camera soon moves on to the act of making food, focusing on mixing the flour and the butter, as if you’re watching a new episode of Chef’s Table. And then there’s a pig watching him do it. This leaves your brain a bit baffled, and that’s why it works.
To continue, Sarnoski also loves symmetry. The initial scenes reminded me a lot of Visconti’s way of framing his heroes through doors and windows, thereby further emphasizing the separation between the two worlds. Sarnoski also employs a Tarkovskian approach, keeping the same scene for a while to build tension. Rob is going to look at the pot the pig ate from not long ago. There is no food and there is no pig anymore. But he sees the pot at his doorstep, and in that moment, Rob knows he has to go.
The hero’s journey is then amplified through scenery, showing him as small by comparison. Rob has been isolated for years, and the scenery engulfs him. When he reaches a small diner, he’s again seen through a door, pinpointing the difference between a desolate man and the society going on without him. But near the end of the story, he will confirm that he liked his old restaurant better without the curtains. Maybe it’s a way of admitting that solace was not what he had expected.
We have mentioned the adoption of symmetrical shots, seemingly in the Kubrick and Anderson tradition. You are going to find wonderful scenes balancing the screen just right. Sometimes there’s an item in focus, and sometimes it’s a way of arranging individuals within society or people within the scenery: symmetry is here to bring order to seemingly incompatible pairs. In postmodern films, symmetry is often discarded because the shot might seem like a construct, destroying the audience’s immersion. But it works perfectly here, since Sarnoski takes the best traditional elements and deconstructs them, just as Rob talks with a chef who is trying to deconstruct traditional dishes. That chef wasn’t happy doing it, but I hope Sarnoski was.
“You made the right choice being out there in the woods. You had your moment, but there’s nothing here for you anymore”, the villain says to Rob at one point. “There’s really nothing here for most of us”. There might not be a higher purpose; this hero might not save the world; there is probably nothing out there, but much like in real life, we will not make drastic changes or plot a universal vengeance. We will just go on. And even though you might feel robbed of an emotional payoff having watched this film, this is exactly why it’s so real. And that’s why, even though it has all the necessary elements, it stops being a fairy tale. It’s just life.
References
- Propp, Vladimir (1928/2009). Morphology of the Folk Tale. Austin: University of Texas Press.