Wedding Trough (1974)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Blistering performances.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

If you ever, wonder what 1996's 'Babe' would be like, if it was directed by an insane art house Belgium director, named Thierry Zéno, then here you go. 'Wedding Trough' AKA 'Vase de noces' is a 1970s art house silence film, about a crazy disturb nameless farmer, (Dominique Garny) who falls in love with his pig, which leads to first bestiality, rape, and then, murder, when the relationship to him, has turned soured. Without spoiling the movie, too much, I have to say, this film is clumsy as a hog on ice. It really tries hard to be, a smart avant-garde, but it come across as more dull & pretentious, than ever. As one scholar puts it, people all over the world have made swine stand for "extremes of human joy or fear, celebration, ridicule, and repulsion." Sadly, this film fails to show much of that. Its content is as a dead pig in the sunshine. Very offensive, rather than beautiful. The film does really does pushes the boundaries of what is accepted. Yet. I'll, at least, try to understand this film on its own terms. For this reason, everything in it is left to interpretation. Synonymous with negative attributes, especially greed, gluttony, and uncleanliness, and these ascribed attributes have often led to critical comparisons between pigs and humans. In the film, they try to show this, by having the farmer father pig mutant babies, however, since the movie had no funds to make convincing half-human pig children. They just used regular piglets to show the farmer, humanity side. The farmer, at first, tries hard to teach and treat the animals as if they were human beings. He allows them to share the dinner table, his clothes, his bed, and his house. This is foreshadowed by the man putting a doll head on a pigeon. However, he gets frustration, due to their lack of manners and their instinct animalistic behavior. In the end, he is the one that degenerate, the furthest, showing how beastly, human being can become; which is foreshadowed, by the cutting of the head of the hen, in the beginning of the film. If you look further, into the black and white film, it seem to me, that the man is a condemned soul that living in what looks like, a post Rapture world, as there is nobody else, around, besides him and Beelzebub (AKA the Pig). Because of this, the man feels like he is dirty, thus he act like an animal. He's mentally disturbed. However, I don't feel, he's autism, like the filmmakers would love to claim. Being autism, doesn't cause people to eat their own feces. No, this type of a behavior has to come, with the setting, in which, he lives. Without mankind to judge him; it allows the beast inside the man to do, whatever, he wants. Typically, the film works the same way, as if allows the audience to watch it, without being judge. Yet, I have a feeling, the majority of people that, somehow like, this film, has that same disturb mental mindset. In my opinion, I think all these scenes, where he demonstrates bizarre behavior is not right. I don't like this movie, at all, not only, due to the large amount of animal cruelty, but badly paced, it is. The scene of him eating his feces lasts for almost half an hour, nearly a third of the movie. It really badly edited. Not only that, but the film is way too repetitive. In short, the film seem, least than an art house film, and more like weird fetish porno. It even has that weird techno mixed with classical music soundtrack to add to the pain. It seem like it was made for the purpose of sexual arousal. After all, some cultures believe that the pig represent the symbol of virility, strength, and fertility and no amount of disagreement against Kafkaesque and Freudian theories on human automata can delay that. While this film never held a theatrical release, it did have a limited festival run, building its notoriety around the world. One such, screening was at the Perth International Film Festival of 1975, in which, upset, the audiences, so much, that it was latter essentially ban in Australia and New Zealand, where it remained largely unchanged since then, due to in part that the film still violates Australian obscenity laws. Its controversial subject and explicit execution continue to create chaos, in other countries as, others refused to show it as the claims that all of the pig sex scenes were simulated, might not be, true. In the end, "Vase de noces" has become one of the rarest films that isn't a "lost film", because of that. It wasn't until 2009, when the German distributor Camera Obscura and the Swedish company Njuta Films released Region 2 copies of the movie, that the film found its way on video and the dark places of the internet. There is also a documentary, about the making of the film, out there, but I have yet, to watch it. Overall: I really couldn't tolerate, watching this explicit movie at all, even with my weird sense of morbid curiously. The reason, why, I watch it, in the first place, was, because I foolish, mistook it, for the 1981's comedy, 'Porky' at the time. In the end, I really can't recommended, watching this sadistically evil film. Like the Jewish, & Muslims cultures, it just better to stay away from this pig. Indeed, this movie indeed shows, that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Like the Great Porky Pigs says, 'That's all, folks'.

Many of the reviews for this film are misleadingly similar, and seem to be copying one another while leaving out key details.** SPOILERS ** PLOT: A young man living entirely by himself in an abandoned church or monastery courts his pig, breeds with her, and then tries to care for the piglets. When they prove unruly at mealtime, he hangs them. The mother goes mad and drowns. In grief, the man buries himself alive with her, has a vision of himself, then returns to the monastery, where he seems to atone by eating nettles, and then eats and drinks his own waste. Finally, he hangs himself and seems to float in the air like a kite after his death.And yes, as one person says, there is bestiality and feces-eating--"it's called the pig-f*cking movie,"don't act astonished. :p If you want the director's opinion, here is his description, more or less: "A solitary man lives in an abandoned farm. Its territory: ground, water, air and fire. He loves a sow tenderly. Three piglets are born from their union. Family knittings, feeding-bottles and meals will have only a time. Death grinds: the sow commits suicide and the alchemist is made crucible." PROBLEMS WITH THESE DESCRIPTIONS: The young man is not necessarily a farmer. He's the only human, he has to get food somehow, but we never see any crops. Moreover, while the director describes the setting as an abandoned farm, it is clearly a monastery, abandoned church, or school, considering that the man regularly rings the bell. (So does the pig once.) This is one of the more intriguing gestures in the film--who is he trying to summon with the bell, or what memory is he replaying? A note: there has always been that bourgeois "disgust" with the goings-ons at places like farms, such as slaughtering chickens, boinking animals, the mere presence of manure, the violence and open sexuality of animals (birds in this case), the "grotesqueness" of actual birth, and the general "muckiness" of life. Criticizing the film for depicting these realities (of life itself) is as gratuitous as the film is said to be.More errors: the IMDb database says it is a continuity error that the man goes into the pig's grave with clothes on and emerges naked. This is clearly intentional on the director's part, as the man undergoes some kind of rebirth.It's also seems inadequate to describe the whole of the man's existence as "insane". He may be separated from people, but he is not alone. He doesn't even only have one choice of mate (there are female chickens and turkeys). The director states the alchemist becomes crucible after the sow's death—not even that has to be madness.This isn't to say I get all of the symbolism. It's unclear to me why he keeps a record of everything he kills in his glass jars (a record of death?), but it's clear that he gives that up for his final experiment, which is about transformation (the whistling teapot is the total synthesis of this symbol: air, water, fire, and "dirt" i.e., feces), overcoming death. That he eats the alchemical mess he makes is automatic. Eating is an ancient symbol for the alchemical process (it may even be the basis). He's seeking immortality, hence the celestial chorus music (not simply as a perverse counterpart to the action).Whether his experiment is successful is ambiguous. Does his vomiting indicate a rejection of the project, and so he hangs himself in despair (why does no one mention the very last, distant shot when he seems to be rising like a kite, higher and higher, as he swings), or is this a success, and he is simply being transported to another plane as it were? Maybe the earthy aspects of the film prevent you from bothering with this, but that doesn't mean the film does.With art films, the first image can often be very telling--maybe even the initial image that inspired the director. With Vase de Noces, we see the man's attempt to unite the human and avian, just as he later attempts to unite the human and porcine. The birds fly away, while the piglets show no such transcendence--so maybe that is why he kills them (or because death, as transformation, is fundamental to alchemy).No one talks about the birds in the film, but it is interesting to notice that the chickens are especially cruel, the turkeys are sexual and engage in what looks (or at least sounds) like a gang rape, and the ducks merely look on curiously, being neither cruel nor sexual. Maybe the man can't breed with them because they're avians (or, in the context of the film, can't fly). In any case, we are presented initial with an image of the unification of man and animal, which ends with him floating in the air like his bird-like (i.e., tethered kite), rising higher and higher.Make what you will about all of this, the movie's not just about sex with pigs and gobbling waste. If nothing else, the man may want transcendence from his condition (by extension, our condition) just as badly as you wish he'd transcend (i.e., leave) it.Lastly, I suggest if you find this movie boring, it's because you know there are scenes of pig-boinking and feces eating, and your impatience for the movie to get to that drives your sense of boredom with the rest of what is going on. That's not a good way to watch this movie. If gratuitous sensationalism is what you want to experience so you can brag to friends about how "out there" you are about movies, go watch something else.

this movie is a perfect example of how a work of art can be misunderstood. when I read all the comments about 'Vase de noces', I was shocked. how can something so beautiful as this movie be misinterpreted? because that's all it is: interpretations. this movie is, because it has got no dialog, one big interpretation. so let's give mine by repeating it's only my interpretation: this movie is about homophobia, even though I only understood its message at the end of the picture. everything became clear to me: obviously, the protagonist is a farmer boy with mental problems, probably caused by something like, perhaps, childhood terrorism, it isn't mentioned in the movie (no dialog, remember?), but it's clear to say this teenage boy has got real problems. because he lives all alone in a farm with his animals, nobody helps him to fur fill his needs. and he has got some weird needs, but only (I interpret) because he lives alone, he's homosexual and no man in around (and no woman either) to help him get off his sexual desires. luckily for the poor kid, there are his animals. they help him go on with his life, by giving free sexual encounters and giving him the possibility to kill whenever he's upset. please, do not forget, I do not give away anything about this movie, there are shocks with thousands in this one I won't tell a thing about. but what I found so interesting, is that the boy has got some issues, he's a bit like the Amon Goeth character in 'Schindler's List', very interesting. he hurts himself, he loves himself, he wants to do good, he fails by being the opposite. how will this character study develop? to know this, you must see this art house movie, pure genius. and the thing about it all, is its hidden message, which I thought was that we must stop hating homosexuals and welcome them in society to avoid situations like the one portrayed in 'Vase de noces', one of the best films I've ever seen.

Now I will admit I am a huge fan of any film deemed disturbing, gross or wrong (my download collection includes all of the Guinea Pig movies, Un Chien Andalou, Nekromantik among many others) and it actually took me a while to hear of Vase de Noces. I eventually heard about it on Listverse on a list of Top Ten Most Disturbing Movies. It was not on the list but someone had suggested it in the comments. On looking it up on IMDb I knew instantly that it must be added to my library of gross movies... After hours battling with The Pirate Bay, Limewire and Youtorrent (I don't pay for anything. Sue me.) I managed to download a full VHSrip of the movie (which I will happily send to anyone who wants it :] message me) and I watched it alone one night... If, like me, you love the grossness of films like this, you will not be disappointed. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend it. I admit it was hard to concentrate on the artiness of the film when man-pig breeding and coprophagia is going on but I did take a few minutes to appreciate the surreal aura of the film. As artsy as it is you gotta admit, somebody's gotta be smoking something to come up with this idea. Then again, this seems like the kind of idea I would come up with... It is definitely an acquired taste and it takes someone with guts of steel to really appreciate it. But I say go for it! It can't be worse than Two Girls One Cup...