The Hour Of The Pig (1992)
This is a classic film in many ways. From the beginning you can quickly see how the people of middle-aged France had to put up with such a hypocritical system of law. Colin Firth portrays a young city lawyer who moves to the country for a simpler life but finds himself defending a pig owned by a gypsy that has been charged with the murder of a young boy. In these days animals and humans were treated equally in the eyes of the law as can be seen in the opening scene where the donkey gets a reprieve from the noose after new evidence is produced to show it was not a willing participant in the bestial affairs of a town farmer.There are some great performances from Ian Holm and Donald Pleasance, my particular favourite is the country girl played by Sophie Dix, a pleasant buxom young lady. When she wakes the lawyer up one morning and notices he has been aroused in his dreams she promptly strips herself off and joins him in bed with the classic line "Oh well, waste not, want not eh"
Some of the courtroom scenes are quite clever. The hypocrisy is amazing. Once a judgement has been made there is no retraction, no matter what new evidence is revealed. Death seems to be the punishment for just about everything. There are many discussions about the rights and wrongs of the archaeic legal system. Well worth watching.
posted by Chris @ 12:58 PM
2 Comments:
Total agreement including wanting to see Sophie Dix again and again
Yes she is fit. Shame they cut it when they released it in USA as The Advocate.
Post a Comment
<< Home