Empowered victims are a classic of the thriller genre, and Piggy will not disappoint. The Sundance Midnight film is directed and scripted by Carlota Martinez Pereda, who has directed and written for television, and whose 2018 short film of the same title won some 90 awards, including a Spanish Academy Goya. This 90-minute film is a follow-up and expansion of that elegant and succinct success. The danger of the feature-length version becoming as bloated as its heroine is circumvented by Pereda, who adds some delicious details to enhance the terror and humor, creating an atmosphere of breathtaking anticipation from the start. Her confident command of the story maintains the tension until the final sequence, where she takes it over the top in an indulgent blood fest, albeit with a glimmer of hope and a hint of redemption.
The plot remains the same: Sara, an overweight teenager nicknamed Cerdita (Piggy), goes for a swim at the local pool in rural Extremadura (an apt name for a region in Spain that endures weather extremes). She suffers cruel and relentless bullying from a trio of slim, cool teenage girls who almost drown her. A mysterious man who has witnessed the fat shaming and abuse kidnaps the mean girls, and the stage is set for the drama — and the blood — to thicken.
Piggy’s father runs a butcher shop, where the bone saw and a poster decorating the walls show he knows how to cut up a pig’s carcass. The village matrons become a Greek chorus commenting on the rumors circulating about missing people, while the police chief and his son dismiss clues to allow the horror to unfold. The avenging mysterious stranger has become disturbingly appealing as a blond, bearded hunk who indulges Piggy by plying her with sweets to munch on. We don’t get a backstory to the killer’s motives (perhaps his limping leg once made him the victim of bullying?) but he is not the focus of the action. This centers on Piggy’s gory dilemma, as she holds back from assisting the villagers in their frantic search for the missing girls. As her home and village become a living hell, it’s no wonder that Piggy prefers to hide under the sheets and masturbate.
Laura Galán gives a tour de force performance as the title character, displaying her overweight body with utter abandon and conveying the horror of becoming the designated village victim. Her parents are either too passive or too aggressive, providing a comic counterpoint in their constant bickering. Carmen Machi, who has acted in hugely popular TV series and films in Spain, including Almodóvar’s Talk to Her, is especially enjoyable as the stern mother who punishes her daughter with a diet of salads and ultimately fails to defend her from her tormentors. Rita Noriega’s cinematography manages to make even daytime in midsummer scary, and Olivier Arson’s music is selective and effectively used.
Piggy has echoes of a peculiarly Spanish form of dark comedy, known as Esperpento, created by Galician anarchist and playwright Ramón del Valle Inclán in the 1920s. Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel used its juxtaposition of death and laughter in some of their works, and the same perverse sense of humor is on full display in Piggy. Pereda slyly parodies icons of Spanish culture: a plastic flamenco dancing doll wriggles on the killer’s dashboard; an escaped black bull pierces the windshield with his horn. And when Piggy staggers away from a scene of carnage, she seems to be emerging from a particularly colorful Tomatina festival in Valencia, which celebrates the tomato harvest by squashing tons of the ripened fruit on the revelers.
Director, screenplay: Carlota Martinez Pereda
Cast: Laura Galán, Carmen Machi, Richard Holmes
Producers: Merry Colomer, David Atlas-Jackson
Cinematography: Rita Noriega
Editing: David Pellegrin
Music: Olivier Arson
Sound: Nicolas Mas, Nacho Arenas, Nicolas Poulpiquet
Production companies: Morena Films (Spain), Backup Media (France)
World sales: Charades, Filmax
Venue: Sundance 2022 Film Festival (Midnight)
In Spanish
90 minutes
