Dead Pigs

This is one of those movies dealing with the effects of capitalism, as if they were essentially some sort of a Chinese thing. There seems always money available to fund a movie that deals with commodification, estrangement and deracination, even exploration and criminality in China, an established relocation of Western middle class anxieties. Dead Pigs, as part of this agenda, is mostly watchable, with truly compelling cinematography and a splendid performance by Vivian Wu and Yang Haoyu. The screenplay nevertheless left me skeptical. There are some nice absurdities in it and there is a unsettling colonial vibe with some white models in a theme park housing complex. Nevertheless the main characters' background were unconvincingly cobbled together and the author doesn't seem to take their misery all too seriously. I had some issues with the gleefully soundtrack, a vexing contrast to the perceptive camera, underlining Yan's willingness to change instantly from depression to irony, culminating in the scene with the excavator with its surreal turn, after which the movie came to a conciliable, even optimistic end. But then during closing credits you see dead ducks floating in the river, accompanied by a bittersweet pop song, the very same the crowd chanted in front of the excevator, a last indication of the director's waywardness (I probably didn't get the symbolic message).

Wow. This was a beautifully made film full of human warmth despite the cold bitter taste of capitalism permeating throughout. A scathing portrayal of the China's rapid development and how China's unquestioning embrace of capitalism forcably strips its citizens of a sense of home and belonging. Incredible to think that this was a directorial debut too. Loved it.

Cathy Yan's debut feature 'Dead Pigs (2018)' was actually released after her sophomore effort 'Birds Of Prey (2020)' in most territories, a year after releasing in China after making its way around the festival circuit for the prior year. That means that most people, including myself, will have actually been introduced to the director by her much weaker and more obviously studio-dictated second effort, rather than via this impressive and somewhat idiosyncratic first effort that interweaves the lives of several people who are connected to and affected by the actions of a real estate corporation. Loosely based around a real incident in which thousands of dead pigs were found floating in the Huangpu River, the film satirises China's current socioeconomic state by weaving the crushingly familiar with the delicately absurd. In turns downbeat and funny, the narrative hops from character to character as it slowly unveils the ties that bind them all together. Though some are more tangentially linked than others, they all naturally flow into and out of each others' stories. Perhaps the heart of the picture is Vivian Wu's Candy Wang, a stubborn salon owner who insists on staying in the house she grew up in even as everything around her is torn down to make way for a garish new housing project. Her seemingly senseless stubbornness is, in many ways, the bedrock of the narrative, as it reverberates across each storyline and essentially perpetuates the struggles of the characters within them. The picture is occasionally a little slow and its overall length is perhaps a tad indulgent. Some of its quirkier elements also come close to feeling entirely out of place (even if they never quite do) and its theming is a little elusive, comprised of several vague threads that never quite form a complete whole. However, this is a generally enjoyable and well-made effort that gets more and more satisfying as its various plot lines begin to converge. It's a really solid debut that makes some bold choices and is all the better for it.

As far as I can tell, she plays an inconsequential role, briefly shoehorned in and without much connection to the plot. Bizarre.

Anyway, as to the main core cast, there's quite a variety of mood and styles in this cautionary tale of ultra-capitalism; I suspect I was supposed to find more of it funny than I did (e.g. The father?) but Vivian Wu pulls it together as Candy with quite a nuanced performance in the (fairly ridiculous) circumstances. The young romance is OK also.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of the ending though - "loose ends" doesn't even begin to cover it!

Worth a look nevertheless.

As a local Shanghainese, this film perhaps means a little more to me than others. Dead Pigs is more about the city than any characters, it is a biopsy on one of the fastest growing and changing cities in the World, and what it opens is a group of really interesting characters who represent each sectors of Shanghai society relatively well while also painting a picture of how the city affects these people both mentally and physically. Cathy Yan does a great job at constructing these societal issues into her film, but unfortunately while the formula is right, the ingredients feels forced. The biggest issue of all is the casting of Mason Lee who is very obviously an ABC and simply does not fit in the film. The film might work better for a Western oriented audience as it does feel disconnected from local culture (even though it does address societal issues very well, but feels very much through Western lenses), but at the same time Western audience would certainly have trouble understanding the nuisances which places the film in an awkward conundrum. Nevertheless, the film explores unique issues and documents a very unique period of city development of my hometown.