Karlovy Vary 2024: Our Lovely Pig Slaughter (by Adam Martinec) | Review
Celebrating Czech traditions and giving us an insight into rural family living in current society is what Czech writer-director Adam Martinec has achieved in his debut film Our Lovely Pig Slaughter, debuting in Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’s Crystal Globe Competition.
Our Lovely Pig Slaughter (original title: Mord) is set in rural Czechia, perhaps in a village not far from the city, bringing family and close friends together for a typical ‘Bohemian’ ritual of slaughtering a pig at the grandparents’ home. This setting offers a glimpse into the lives of Czech men, women, and children living under the burden of following traditions, which some might find unappealing.
First-time feature director Adam Martinec explores a myriad of human relationships and emotions, with the gathering of family beginning to trickle in on a wet wintry morning into the home of an elderly couple. The group includes the son-in-law Karel, played by Karel Martinec (the director’s father), his daughters and their families, and friends who are experts in pig slaughter. They unite to slaughter a home-bred 150-kilo pig. The day is riddled with human emotions, beginning with tears due to the many onions the father wants his daughter to cut, to the strained unspoken words between the father-in-law and the son-in-law. The other daughter’s marital problems also add to the brewing emotions within that single day of the ritual.
One can feel the tension ensuing in the scenes that follow. Martinec brings in the elements of personal and generational frictions to show that every time there is a ritual, things must go awry. And indeed, things do go awry: the expert in pig slaughter brings damp ammunition that might not work, Karel’s daughter is angry at her father for mistreating her mother, the grandson goes missing, the grandfather decides to inform his son that this will be the last time such a messy, expensive ‘event’ will be held, and to add to the problems, a nosy uptight old neighbor snitches to the authorities about the domestic slaughter, which according to new European Union laws is illegal.
Thus, the ritual becomes a battleground for all sorts of personal, social, and gender battles to arise. Martinec’s film brings these issues to the fore, discussing current family dynamics and societal views on this ritual.
The film leaves you pondering over these equations of societal, peer, and psychological pressures. Do such rituals or traditions indeed keep the family together, or do they disintegrate the concept of being together? The director seamlessly puts into perspective the goriness of slaughtering pigs and that of everyday living as the old and new realities collide in his mature handling of Our Lovely Pig Slaughter, competing for the prestigious Crystal Globe.
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