WenQing
Directed by : George Miller
Main Cast : the pig and lots of other animals
Length : 110 min approx
Rating : ****
Official Web Site: www.piginthecity.com
This Review Filed: November 29, 1998.
PIG BEYOND FARMER-DROME
George Miller, the director of BABE and its sequel BABE-PIG IN THE CITY, also directed THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, which was adequately fantastical, a little neurotic and filled with a bit of wild energy. George Miller also directed all three movies in the MAD MAX series, which propelled Mel Gibson to fame, and were filled with plenty of violence and post-apocalyptic scenes of a wasted world. To think that George Miller would not let this legacy of his filmic visions affect the innocent environment of BABE would just be foolish.
I enjoyed BABE immensely, and it seemed fairly innocuous with its simple values of courage, identity and transcending "the way things are." But PIG IN THE CITY seems to be a little pig's trot on the big wild side. The film is stocked with images and cinematography that is sometimes ambiguous, with themes that seem even frightening and dark in their imaginative conception. I liked PIG IN THE CITY because its vivid and almost nightmarish vision offered a subtle and sophisticated look at the conflict between disturbing and hyper-civilised cityscapes and the innocent, pastoral world of edenic farm-life.
The plot at first promises to be simple. The farmer hurts himself falling into the well outside the cottage (slightly more kinetic and harrowing than you'd expect) and men from the bank (which the narrator describes as soulless individuals- we also never see their faces) want to seize the farm because Hogget has no money. Mrs Hogget then responds to the offer of a handsome appearance fee for Babe in the city and flies off with the pig, while Farmer Hogget is stuck in a wheelchair. You'd think that the story would revolve around Babe's appearance at some festival of sorts, meeting some new animals, and finally overcoming some minor conflict of confidence to get enough money for the farm but Miller turns this whole notion on its head the moment Mrs Hogget and Babe arrive in the city. From then on, the whole film seems to take this wild turn into a dreamscape of images and themes that border on being dark and disturbing.
![[ Babe Sees City ]](/film/images/babe2.jpg)
The city that Babe looks out a window at is a haphazard jumble of cityscapes from everywhere: from the Golden Gate bridge of San Francisco, to the Statue of Liberty and Empire State building from New York, Sydney Opera House in a lower right-hand corner (George Miller is an Aussie! And the film was made in Australia), Hollywood in the left side and I think a tower from Seattle in the distance, plus a whole lot of other buildings. It's like a collision of the hyper-civilised cities of the world into one image. And, the voice-over narration tells us that Babe starts to forget the farm, and the face of Farmer Hogget too as he looks out at the confused cityscapes. It starts to get a little disturbing at this point, suggesting somehow that the citified world somehow eats away at the simpler values of the farm, and inevitably starts to possess the former farm animal and his thoughts.
The plot, also in on this act of being dark and disturbing, drops the whole notion of Mrs Hogget and the appearance that Babe will make in some festival. Instead, she and Babe are delayed at the airport and miss the connecting flight and consequently the whole festival. They're stuck in this nameless city and have to survive its nightmarish pitfalls and ills for the rest of the movie.
Thus, we get exposed to a whole new cast of animals in an animal shelter run by a woman and her uncle (Mickey Rooney in a non-speaking and strange role -- you have to watch it to find out how strange it is). There are talking chimpanzees and dogs, and a choir of cats. But
gone is the cuteness and cheeriness of the original BABE. What PIG IN THE CITY delivers is a lot of animals who are misfits, strays, down-and-out deadbeats and social rejects. They are members of a society that has alienated them, rejected them, and left them hungry and lost. This piles on the dark qualities of the movie in dollops, including the reference to "Animal Farm" in the animal shelter which resembles the barn in George Orwell's novel. The animals in PIG IN THE CITY all sing the theme song of BABE which starts with "If I had words to make a day for you." But then Babe doesn't get all the words right, ![[ Babe And Friends ]](/film/images/babe22.jpg)
and all the animals just join in with "la la la" to the same tune.
It's like the animals in "Animal Farm" chorusing along to "Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland" but also not really knowing all the words. In fact, Babe's suggestion to dole out jellybeans to all the animals despite the food being procured by only a select few, seems to hover around some communistic ideals, with the infallible Soviet head (Babe himself) propped up by a fierce police state (the pitbull). It's very weird, ambiguous and keeps suggesting the corrupting influence of over-civilised society, where its members become destitute and poor- and where because there is not enough for everyone, philosophies like Communism arise to try to right the flaws of society's ills (though not necessarily more effective, because the kitten is "still hungry").
I believe that PIG IN THE CITY is more about the invocation of ideas that Miller effects in the types of images he portrays. The plot itself, while mostly linear (about how when Mrs Hogget and Babe are separated, they find each other again, and somehow find ways to make money and save the farm), is merely a tool to string together visions and messages from Miller.
One example is seen when the crippled dog who has an attached wheelchair is near death. He gets a strange nirvana-like/ heaven-ish experience, where he is in a beautiful meadow, free from his wheelchair and leaping up with healthy legs at butterflies. Somehow it conjured up for me associations of how death is the liberation for those who have been given less than nothing in their lives, and how much more blissful for them death is.
Another is how Thelonius (Mitra, the orang-utan from the Singapore Zoo, whom Kelvin Tong hails as our first international star- which isn't saying enough for local talent) is obsessed with the Mickey Rooney character, whom he calls "Himself." When "Himself" later passes away, he transfers this strange worship and adoration to Mrs Hogget who later has to wear Mickey Rooney's clown costume (don't ask) when she saves Babe. What's even weirder is how Thelonius, when stripped of his clothes in the animal pound, cannot escape with the other animals until he has put on his clothes (he repeats that he has to get dressed first), even though all the other animals are not averse to running off in the buff. This suggests something about the pretences that civilisation places on its membersÖ like clothing as artificial symbols of civilised behaviour and perhaps even the need for religion (ie. "Himselfî as some kind of godhead) in increasingly advanced societies. In fact, looking back at BABE, it would seem almost that Farmer Hogget was a possible godhead for Babe and the other farm animals. When he says simple proverbial or psalmic things like "that'll do pig, that'll do," and his head is cast in the light of the sun, it's weird and angelic, and it happens again in PIG IN THE CITY.
Maybe though, no one really saw this about PIG IN THE CITY. Maybe I'm just deluded and reading too much into a far simpler and less neurotic vision of the dichotomy of city and country life, and yet the palpable sense I get from PIG IN THE CITY is still precisely that the city is a dark world with no solutions for the diseases of civilisation that it generates (eg. Poverty, loneliness, corrupted values), especially with the film's conclusion back in the farm.
![[ Babe And Friends ]](/film/images/babe23.jpg)
It seems that once the animals retreat from the city and its civilised evils, they are happier and more blessed in the farm. The voice-over narration tells us the animals can now be as they really are, shedding the terrible ills that they inherited from the city. It sounds like a return to innocence after a caper in the dark world of the city, and an attempt to escape the subversive corruption of civilisation.
PIG IN THE CITY still retains some (only a little) of its animatronic cuteness, with talking animals and such, yet they now serve Miller's vision of the city on the verge of collapse from hyper-civilisation, and the edenic purity of the farm, a pastoral environment that offers sanctuary. Miller, however, with this philosophical turn, doesn't cop-out on us entirely with subscribing to the pastoral farm world as a heal-all source of feel-good sentiments. There is still a suggestion that some ills of the city, once experienced, cannot be cleansed : the pitbull's relationship with the pink poodle doesn't work out, as she commits adultery and runs off with another dog. It seems like a minor distraction from the overall optimism towards the close of the filmÖ but along with Thelonius turning to Mrs Hogget as a "Herselfî to substitute the "Himselfî, I think it becomes clear that some effects of the city are irreversible, and perhaps we have no choice but to acknowledge that not only is the dark hyper-civilisation around us, it is also a part of us too.
That, for a cute show about talking animals, is probably about as disturbing, dark, philosophical and mature as it gets, and that's really amazing. PIG IN THE CITY is special for how differently it turns itself into an incisive and vivid scrutiny of civilisation. Keep thinking "cutesy animals" and you're in for a big surprise.
The Flying Inkpot's Rating System
* Wait for the TV2 broadcast.
** A little creaky, but still better than staying at home with Gotcha!
*** Pretty good, bring a friend.
**** Amazing, potent stuff.
***** Perfection. See it twice.
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