Review of Disco Pigs

Introduction

Although Pig and Runt were from separate families they were born almost at the same time and from that day became close to each other. They did everything together and couldn`t be apart, during childhood Pig would help to protect Runt from her drinking Father and in later years teaming up at the nightclubs in order to start a fight or a joke on someone and even robbing a young youth at a shop for free liquor. Even at birth from inside their craddles they stared at each other through beady eyes and touched each others hand. As they grow up together they touch hands last thing at night through a hole in the wall between the two houses and everything is perfect between the two.
Pig`s feelings start to differ once he sees Runt dancing about in the clubs and he`s reaching the stage of wanting to explore his sexlife. He tries to kiss Runt, and this splits their friendship how it used to be. Pig`s behaviour starts to become unstable and emotional and so he begins his own journey to find the whereabouts of Runt and to make her his again. Once the two are reunited Pig goes back to his violent old ways, whereas Runt starts to differ and have other thoughts.

Video

The DVD is a widescreen anamorphic transfer with a fairly clear, defined picture quality. The colours aren`t brilliantly bold and the picture has a fair bit of brightness at times making the picture slightly `washed out`. There are some nice authentic scenes which feature streets, run down shop fronts and small villages, there is a lit up shot of `The Palace` nightclub from a long angle too.
Flashbacks are seen a lot in this movie but are important as they show the friendly affection between Pig and Runt in the early childhood age and the experiences they both went through together, it basically gives an insight to why they are so close with each other.
Another sort of flashback filming effect can be seen a few times and is when both of them are at their happiness and they visualise each other as a King and Queen, both are elegantly dressed and glittery with silvery confetti stuff falling all over them as they twirl around smiling. In contrast to this scene there are some graphic violent images to divert your eyes at and are situated around Pig`s obsessional feelings towards Runt, a mirror gets smashed during a breather, an ashtray is used as a weapon in a jealous rage, a fork is also used differently!

Audio

Surprising enough this DVD has been produced with a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track and does justice in the nightclub scenes. The 5.1 set-up gives the dialogue a speaker to work with and is clear even over the pounding of music and louder scenes. Although, as this is an Irish made film the accents are quite `heavy` and it is difficult to understand what is said especially from Pig.
The background ambience effects consisting of birds and other subtle sounds as well as louder examples are clear enough to hear, the mirror crack sound was a startler and did make me jolt slightly, my way of saying that it sounded real enough!
The music took on themes surrounding the plot of the movie, instruments like the xylophone or glockenspiel tinkled little `baby` tunes similar to something that would come from a child`s toybox. There were a few slow mellow moments in the music similar to a lullaby style, also some familar tracks featured both in and out of the nightclub scenes, "Slip into something more comfortable/Kinobe" and "Bring me Sunshine/Morecambe and Wise" were two spotted, there was also a "Chemical Brothers" remix and one performed by "Moby" according to the end credits. It was the nightclub scenes that did bring out the best in the audio, dance tracks which featured a pacing thumping bass tested the sub in parts whilst some hi-hat instruments and other ambient effects were heard through other speakers.

Features

A bad shame yet again for the lack of anything above basic. A trailer is all you get over this static background, lilac and purple in colour in which two faces can be made out with the title overlapped. A `chapter index` and `play` can also be selected.

Conclusion

A strange but interesting movie, one which I found had similarities to the relationship between Forrest and Jenny in "Forrest Gump". This obsessive togetherness plot was a bit more `gritty` whilst Forrest Gump is quite lighthearted and slightly comical. I think it would have been nice to have an English language or at least a subtitle option as that was the aspect letting it down as I couldn`t understand at times. According to the end credits "Disco Pigs" was based on a play by Enda Walsh and it would be interesting to know how much more different the plot to the movie is than the play.