Hiding underwater to escape her vicious aggressors, a rush of terror washes over Sara (Laura Galán), a large-bodied teenager target of incessant insults, and worse, about her weight. The callousness of the bullying perpetrated against her one summery afternoon won’t go unpunished but will place the victim in a conundrum fluctuating between guilt and a warranted desire for retribution.
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Hard-to-watch for its depiction of such wickedness, Spanish writer-director Carlota Pereda’s debut feature “Piggy,” expanded from her same-title Goya Award-winning short film, is a blood-splattered portrait of a girl brought to the brink of insanity. For starters, Sara lives in the type of small-town where gossip runs rampant and where those who are different suffer social ostracism. Home offers little refuge, as her overbearing mother (Carmen Machi) partakes in the obliteration of Sara’s confidence.
On the fateful day when a group of fatphobic girls, who also mock her and her family on social media, escalate their behavior from malevolent verbal abuse to murderous intent, Sara endures unspeakable humiliation. That former childhood friend, Claudia (Irene Ferreiro), who’s jumped ship for the sake of adolescent popularity, is a perpetrator by inaction makes the ordeal more harrowingly personal. Yet, soon after their heinous acts, the trio of girls goes missing. Sara knows what happened but won’t say.
Trapped in the tight 1.33:1 aspect ratio of cinematographer Rita Noriega’s sultry frames, Sara is exposed physically and emotionally. In agonizing medium shots, Sara’s seen running to safety or shown in deep close-ups holding her face in infuriating frustration. Pereda introduces a motif about this feeling of claustrophobia-induced desperation in the form of a bull that escaped from a local celebration. Now, free from its captors, it roams the neighboring town, causing panic.
A sequence around the halfway mark tracks Sara as she searches for her cell phone in a wooded area at night; Pereda builds tension by prolonging the shot almost excessively until multiple parties arrive at the scene. Instances of Sara hiding behind walls—from her mother, from her bullies’ parents, or from a mysterious man—populate the piece and bolster the idea that she must conceal her presence to prevent being attacked.
Pereda’s film faintly echoes the themes in Catherine Breillat’s dark masterwork “Fat Girl” but with a far less transgressive lens. Tempted by the chance of a monstrous romance with an unnamed figure, who may be the only one on her side, Sara’s sexual awakening is tinged with the violence around in ways that excite her and disturb her. But while “Piggy” plants this as a possible escape, what ensues takes a few more turns before the blood settles.
Sara lacks character development, however. The thinly drawn anti-heroine is solely defined by how others shame her for her body. The more distressed she becomes about investigating her bullies’ disappearance, the more we hope for Pereda to let us see Sara beyond the torment. If the world around her dismisses her entirely because of her weight, then the film should, ideally, provide a better-formed view of who she is. Her personality is often reduced to the sugary treats she eats when stressed. Likewise, her family owns a butcher shop which aligns with the story’s need for symbolism but feels a little too on the nose.
Whatever quibbles one may have with the director’s construction of the character, what’s not up for debate is how astonishingly committed Galán is to the brutal physicality of the role, and, with what she’s is given, to the psychological turmoil this causes in Sara. Galán puts forward a devastating acting achievement that holds nothing back.
During the most agonizing events, Galán’s tearful screams for a fraction of compassion resonate with a bone-chilling potency. Pereda doesn’t turn away to grant the audience reprieve. Instead, she displays the effects of such treatment, which some in town may want to dismiss as child’s play, in all their traumatic ruthlessness. The horror here is more than disremembered corpses or gushing fluids, but human’s capacity for cruelty.
Although the resolution Pereda offers favors Sara’s moral standing, and prevents this generally compelling genre-infused coming-of-age from complete nihilism, perhaps choosing to go with a protagonist who doesn’t take the high road in the face of those who’ve wronged them so horrifically, could have been more philosophically intriguing. No matter what decision Sara makes once she is in too deep, the outcome is unlikely to change the minds of those who have always tried to strip her of her humanity. [B-]
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