‘Pig’ movie: question reality

September 28, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

"I can't remember what I remembered."

Pig is a trippy indy film that starts weird and gets weirder, with hints of MementoTotal Recall, Groundhog Day, The Truman Show, Vanilla Sky, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Starring Rudolf Martin (Vlad Dracula in The Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula and Ari Haswari in NCIS), the film engaged my mind right up to the reveal at the end,  and pushed my paranoia up a notch — in a fun way.

A man wakes up alone in the middle of the desert with a black hood on his head and his hands tied behind his back. At death’s door, he is discovered by a woman living alone in the desert and is nursed back to health. Upon regaining consciousness, the man realizes he has no idea who he is or how he got in the desert. His only clue: a piece of paper in his pocket with the name “Manny Elder” written on it, which sends him on a journey to Los Angeles to discover his past. But things and people are not what they seem and clues lead to something bigger and more unusual than the man could have ever imagined.

The film was inspired by a story about a Lebanese man who was rendered by the CIA for being a suspected terrorist, says producer Mark Stolaroff. “After a couple of years, when it was clear he wasn’t a terrorist, the man was blindfolded and dropped into a foreign country where he didn’t even speak the language. His family had moved on with their lives, believing him dead.” It was also inspired by the ideas of Ray Kurzweil and his concept of humans merging with computers, with the reversal of death and illness, he said.

Winner of the Best Feature Film award at this year’s Sci-Fi-London, Pig will screen at festivals in several states this Fall, including Shriekfest in L.A. on Oct. 2. More: official website.