Vase de Noces

Infobox Film
name = Vase de Noces


caption = No image available
director = Thierry Zéno
writer = Thierry Zéno
John Kupferschmidt
starring = Dominique Garny
music = Alain Pierre
cinematography = Thierry Zéno
editing = Thierry Zéno
producer = Thierry Zéno
distributor = Zeno Films
released = 1974
runtime = 80 min.
language = None
budget = Unknown
amg_id = 1:155861~T0
imdb_id = 0072355
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"Vase de Noces" (1974) is a Belgian arthouse film directed by Thierry Zéno and stars Dominique Garny. Better known by its English title, "Wedding Trough", the film has never had an official theater release, but has been shown in film festivals around the world (notably at the Perth International Film Festival in 1975, which caused controversy with Australian censors).

The film deals openly, and sometimes graphically, with bestiality, and is informally known as "The Pig Fucking Movie". It also features real animal killings and coprophagia, and has been labeled obscene by many sources, notably by the OFLC.cite web | url=http://www.refused-classification.com/Films_V.htm | title=Film V | publisher=Refused-Classification.com | accessdate=2006-09-23]

Because of no official theatrical, VHS, or DVD release, "Wedding Trough" is one of the most obscure movies that is not a lost film. Its last film festival appearance was at the 61 st Film Festival Locarno in "Tribute to the Royal Belgian Cinémathèque / Experimental film Competitions of Knokke le Zoute".

Plot

The film has a very incoherent plot structure, and is difficult to describe chronologically due to several strange and often random scenes interweaved into the overall story. Such displays consist of the farmer fastening doll heads to pigeons, cutting off the head of a chicken, and collecting strange materials in jars.

A farmer, who may be the last person on Earth, lives on a rural farm in Belgium, and falls in love with his huge sow. After bonding with her in several strange ways, such as rolling in manure with her, he finally decides to culminate the relationship. After which, the sow gives birth to human/pig hybrids, whom the farmer immediately tries to bond with. He tries to feed them all, but they all try to leave to be with their mother. Jealous, the farmer hangs all of them. When she discovers that her children are dead, the sow runs away in grief and falls into a mud pit, where she drowns.

The farmer begins to look for his love, and when he finds her, he becomes overcome in sadness. He drags the sow out of the hole and buries her back at the farm, and subsequently tries burying himself along with her. When this fails, he decides that his life is also over, and begins destroying every important aspect of his life, including the strange jars that he collects throughout the film. After his breakdown, he oddly begins making tea out of his feces and urine, which he consumes wholeheartedly, and immediately becomes sick. Finally, he hangs himself off a ladder, which is the last image of the film.

Controversy in Australia

In 1975, "Wedding Trough" was scheduled to be shown at the Perth International Film Festival as screenings at film festivals did not depend on the approval of the Australian censors at this time. However, the West Australian government pressured the censors to review the film before it was allowed to screen; the censors did so and refused to classify the film on grounds of obscenity. Festival chairman David Roe and director Thierry Zeno went to the censors to appeal the decision. The appeal was upheld, and "Vase de Noces" was allowed to be shown.cite web | url=http://www.refused-classification.com/Films_V.htm | title=Film V | publisher=Refused-Classification.com | accessdate=2006-09-23] Upset with the decision, the West Australian Government would again do battle with the Film Festival the next year.

The government then threatened that if the Perth Film Festival continued their plans to import Nagisa Oshima's "Empire of the Senses", then every film that was to be shown at the festival would have to go under review of the censors. Because of this impossible task, the Perth Film Festival decided not to air Oshima's film (thought it later aired at the Melbourne and Sydney film festivals without incident).cite web | url=http://www.refused-classification.com/Films_V.htm | title=Film Censorship in Australia | publisher=Refused-Classification.com | accessdate=2006-09-23]

That same year, "Vase de Noces" again went before the censors, and was refused classification again. It remains banned in Australia to this day, although it can be downloaded online. [From, for example, The Pirate Bay.]

External links

* [http://www.luff.ch/site/en/2006/cinema/sxprmntl/ "Vase de Noces"] in "Lausanne Underground Film and Music Festival"

References