It’s hard to predict what subjects capture the zeitgeist. Lately, the big screen has been fascinated with swine. Last year, Nicolas Cage turned heads as a forlorn soul mourning the loss of his companion in Pig. Several years prior, there was Gunda, which chronicled the lives of a mother pig and other farm animals in a memorable documentary. Boar, a 2017 Australian horror film from writer-director Chris Sun, found a young family hunted by a wild boar in the country.
And now, there’s Squeal, filmmaker Aik Karapetian's Latvian dark comedy fairytale about Samuel (Kevin Janssens), a nomadic man searching for his father only to find himself on the edges of a mythical forest and a chance meeting with a pig farmer’s daughter, Kirke (Laura Siliņa). What can possibly go wrong?
“After seeing the film, my hope is that audiences walk out of the theater with a smile on their face — that was my goal,” Karapetian said about the production. “I didn't have such ambitious plans to make people feel like they should cry. I wanted them to have a good time.”
No doubt, they’ll have an unforgettable one. In Squeal, Kirke’s initial hospitality is a smoke screen to force Samuel into forced labor on the family farm. Alone, unable to speak the language, and chained up with the pigs 24/7, Samuel adapts. And then things take a darker turn.
Here Piggy Piggy: The Squeal Backstory
Director Karapetian, who also co-wrote Squeal with Aleksandr Rodionov, is quick to note that the film smacks of a wild fairytale with a prominent lesson: that our perceptions of events and people may not be what they seem. (We’re looking at you, Three Little Pigs!) Basically, sometimes we must go through a major ordeal to understand a deeper truth.
The main inspiration for the film, which also stars, Aigars Vilims, Normunds Griestiņš, Juris Bartkevičs, Guntis Pilsums, comes from the Greek myth of the goddess Circe — Kirke in the film takes her name from that celestial gal. Legend tells us that Circe turned Odysseus’ traveling companions into swine, which led to Odysseus staying with her and accepting her love.
“For us, it was making the right references to ancient Greek mythology,” Karapetian explained. “My co-writer was inspired by Odysseus, and that’s where it began. When he read the first draft to me, I was also inspired and started looking for gifted actors, and I found Laura and I understood how to do it. We wanted to give her an ancient goddess kind of face."
“In terms of finding the right characteristics for the actors, it was more about going back to the fairytale theme,” he added. “Each character has its own function. I didn't want to make up psychological portraits of the characters, considering the fact what would be happening and where, but to make it so that audiences believed in the unbelievable things Samuel experienced. That was the most challenging goal during the production.”
Fortunately, for Samuel, a “magical” piglet gains his confidence and shows him a path toward freedom and, in many ways, real love.
Creating A Story Filled With Intensity
Karapetian, a graduate of the Latvian Academy of Culture, gained international attention from previous outings, such as People Out There and The Man in the Orange Jacket. He released the thriller Firstborn back in 2017 at the Paris International Film Festival. An adept storyteller, he also staged two noteworthy opera productions, “The Barber Of Seville” and “Faust.”
He said he was intrigued with the concept of Squeal for many reasons, but mostly because he’d never lived in the country. Something about being in the countryside lent itself to remarkable ways to tell a story. “The first thing I think about when writing a film is the environment," he shared.
As far as execution goes, the filmmaker succeeds with Squeal. Trippy, intense, and suspenseful, it’s hard to walk away from the film not appreciating all that went into it. Even though it’s a bit unconventional. The 2019 folk horror film Midsommar comes to mind — as intriguing as it is “out there.”
So far, audiences have, overall, enjoyed the movie. “I attended a few film festivals, and I was surprised to notice that the entire audience was laughing non-stop,” Karapetian said. “That was so interesting for me because it wasn't my main intention to make a film that amused people. I wanted them to smile at some elements, but it was never a comedy because there were no ‘jokes’ in it. It’s just an ironic fairy tale. But I'm very happy people are responding to it.”
He added that a voice-over narrative also helps audiences understand the right tone for the story. He also credits the film’s two leads for adding depth to the overall story.
“Kevin is a great actor with a unique mix of talents,” Karapetian said. “He's a very handsome man, but at the same time can be very intense [on screen]. I love how brave he is. And this was one of Laura’s first film experiences and she brought the nerve into the story. She became just not a ‘goddess,’ but a tender and vulnerable human being.”
As for the other stars — the farm animals and of course, that special pig, the filmmaker chuckled. “We had an animal coach working with these piglets, who were living together,” he explained. “It went well. Actually, we had fewer problems with the pigs than we had for coordinating everything with the human beings.”
Squeal will be released in select theaters and VOD Aug 19.