They say that it is the olfactory sense that is most closely linked to memory. But if Marcel Proust had anything to say about it (which obviously he did), taste plays just as much of an integral role in triggering memories as smell. Former chef-turned-societal recluse Robin Feld (Nicolas Cage) knows this all too well, which is perhaps at least part of the reason why he’s ceased to bestow his culinary gifts upon the denizens of Portland as he once did fifteen years ago.
In that block of time, “Rob” has retired to the remotest of Oregonian woods to cope with the death of his wife, Laurie. Like many details left out of the film that serve no purpose to the message at large, we never find out how she died. The only detail that matters is that she did, and it tore something inside of Rob that could never be mended again. That is, perhaps until his trusty pig came along. A Band-Aid for his psychological woes in her unspoken role as an emotional support animal—even if Rob claims she’s for truffle hunting only. Though he reaps the financial benefits of her gifts by selling her finds to a wet behind the ears restaurant supplier named Amir (Alex Wolff), the pig is about much more than that (and no, as Rob is sure to debunk the rumor, he does not fuck his pig). As the only connection Rob has to the outside world, Amir ends up being the one he calls upon when his precious animal is snatched from his small cabin in the middle of the night.
It’s a harsh and brutal scene, in direct contrast to the establishing moments of Rob and his pig in the tranquil woods. These are touching and idyllic shots, making it plain to see that there is a devoted love between these two beasts. In “Part One: Rustic Mushroom Tart,” the peacefulness of Rob’s life is captured best in a single moment executed by writer-director Michael Sarnoski (this being his film debut), as the flour Rob is using to make his pie crust falls majestically toward the snout of the pig, the light catching just so as she shakes the white flecks off herself. It is a simple, fleeting moment, but it says so much about the calm, unburdened state Rob has achieved out in the woods. Yet it’s clear that he has not been able to emotionally unburden himself entirely by sheer virtue of extricating himself from the clutches of so-called humanity.
At one point during the initial setup of the movie, we see him thumbing through some items and coming across a tape that says “For Robin” on it. It seems the handwriting alone is enough to send Rob into a tailspin, and we won’t understand until later that it belongs to his deceased wife, Laurie. He can barely play any of it before he ejects the tape and sits down, reeling in front of the cassette player/radio. The pig walks over, snorting concernedly. Rob assures, “I’m okay.” It’s another key instant of tenderness between the two beings that showcases why Rob would be so distraught over the loss of his best and only friend.
Enough to deign reemerging into Portland, after a lead from two tweaker types who originally stole the pig for some “city guy” sends him in that direction. And those who are local to Portland will be pleased to recognize such filming locations at the Skyline Tavern and Le Pigeon. As for Amir, he’s just along for the ride, despite being the one driving. And it’s almost as though, immediately upon crossing the Broadway Bridge over the Willamette River, Rob starts to trip out a little. It appears that merely being anywhere near civilization is giving him anxiety (and rightly so). Or perhaps it’s just the flood of memories coming back, likely of Laurie.
As the duo descends upon the restaurant scene so that Rob can shake down some leads, he goes first to a man named Edgar (Darius Pierce), in what will be one of many instances that ensue during which there are tinges of Rian Johnson’s debut, Brick, in terms of the “campy” neo-noirish quality of the film. Including the fact that after his assault during the pig’s kidnapping, not once throughout the movie does Cage “clean up” or wipe his face of the encrusted blood on it. A stylistic choice that’s not only “uniquely Cage” but also speaks to the fact that Rob is the sole person in the narrative who shows up authentically as himself—even if that self is a broken man.
And perhaps a ghost of a man as well, for that’s precisely how Edgar looks at Rob when he arrives bearing a carton with food to offer—the staff of life that remains most important no matter how rich or poor, powerful or powerless you are. Edgar takes a bite of the bounty and solemnly remarks to Rob, “I remember a time when your name meant something to people, Robin. But now, you have no value. You don’t even exist anymore.” Here we have the acknowledgement of another primary theme of Pig: you are nothing in society unless you play its game, adhere to its tenets. To withdraw from it entirely is to declare you have no worth to it, namely because you’re no longer contributing to its wheels of capitalism (a system as at play in the restaurant business as anywhere else). Even the film’s title is about so much more than the surface plot, instead commenting on humankind itself as a pig of an entity.
On his quest to recover his only remaining love, Rob delivers plenty of memorable soliloquies, including one about how all of Portland will be underwater again soon thanks to the geological clock that dictates a massive earthquake must take place every two hundred or so years. Which is why he starts the speech with, “We don’t have to care.” And yet so many of us do. About so many inanities. And that’s precisely why the subject of “caring” comes up a few times in Pig, with another speech from Rob directed at an ex-employee of his (who he fired for overcooking the pasta) named Finway (David Knell). Now the chef at a restaurant that looks plucked straight from an episode of Portlandia, Rob tears at the very fiber of his being and paper-thin self-assurance by declaring, “Every day, you wake up and they’ll be less of you. You live your life for them and they don’t even see you. You don’t even see yourself. We don’t get a lot of things to really care about.” In other words, don’t waste your life pretending to care about something you really don’t.
Perhaps this is, in part, why Rob felt obliged to disconnect from Portland after Laurie died. Without her there, what was really left? Certainly “being a chef” in service of others was not enough to compel him to stay. Amir’s father, Darius (Adam Arkin), phrases it best when he says, “You made the right choice, being out there in the woods. You had your moment, but there’s nothing here for you anymore. There’s really nothing here for most of us.” That can be said of anyone who stays too long in a certain city as a means to hold on to some vague semblance of the past, of their “heyday.”
But Rob isn’t so quick to retreat back into the forest from whence he came just because he hasn’t had luck in finding his pig yet. In one final bid to recover his beloved, he enlists Amir to gather the necessary ingredients to make a particular meal for Darius—who holds the key to unearthing the pig—that, for reasons previously revealed by Amir, will bring him to his knees with the deluge of memory required to make him talk. After all, as Proust described of his madeleine, “No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin… And suddenly the memory revealed itself. …The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.”
The power of food and drink (tellingly, the most rudimentary elements of existence) is the crux of Pig, yet its premise relies most of all on how humans—as animals themselves—are treated like currency by their fellow man. “What can you do for me? How can you further my cause, my needs?” To the point where someone like Rob does become “valueless” because he refuses to buy into the game. Which he saliently tells Finway isn’t real. Yet to so many in this porcine society, it’s the only thing they believe in.
