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‘Our Lovely Pig Slaughter’ Review: A Rowdily Tragicomic Ode to Family Feuds and Disappearing Traditions
Director Adam Martinec's funny-sad debut "Our Lovely Pig Slaughter" traces a rural Czech family ritual that reveals how the sausage really gets made.
Centering on the ancient Czech ritual of zabijacka, a day-long communal pig-butchering in which no liver, lard or loin is left behind and no opportunity for familial conflict passed over, Martinec’s doleful comedy offers a needed reminder of what meat is when not packaged onto polystyrene trays and slapped with a barcode. More importantly, Martinec’s intimately observed screenplay and his superb, largely non-professional ensemble speak to what these meat-meets represent for aging rural communities: the chance to connect the next generations to the rites of the past while also bringing one’s increasingly scattered and urbanized clan temporarily back into the fold of the villages and farms they’ve left behind. Here, those tensions are underlined by the unspoken knowledge that the zabijacka custom — which is technically outlawed under EU meat-production guidelines — is on its last trotters, but unlike the unfortunate swine who for centuries have met their end as part of this Bohemian ritual, family traditions tend to die a slow and painful death.
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