''Vase de Noces'' (also known as ''Wedding Trough'' and ''The Pig Fucking Movie'') is a 1974 Belgian
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
exploitation
Exploitation may refer to:
*Exploitation of natural resources
*Exploitation of labour
**Forced labour
*Exploitation colonialism
*Slavery
**Sexual slavery and other forms
*Oppression
*Psychological manipulation
In arts and entertainment
*Exploita ...
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed by
Thierry Zéno
Thierry Zéno (born Thierry Jonard; 22 April 1950 – 7 June 2017) , retrieved 10 May 2009. was a
zoophilia
Zoophilia is a paraphilia involving a sexual fixation on non-human animals. Bestiality is cross-species sexual activity between humans and non-human animals. The terms are often used interchangeably, but some researchers make a distinction b ...
. It features both real and simulated animal killings and
coprophagia
Coprophagia () or coprophagy () is the consumption of feces. The word is derived from the grc, κόπρος , "feces" and , "to eat". Coprophagy refers to many kinds of feces-eating, including eating feces of other species (heterospecifics), o ...
, and has been labeled obscene by many sources, notably by the OFLC of Australia. The film was banned in Australia by the
Australian Classification Board
The Australian Classification Board (ACB or CB) is an Australian government statutory body responsible for the classification and censorship of films, video games and publications for exhibition, sale or hire in Australia. The ACB was establis ...
in the mid 1970s with two failed attempts, according to the Australian Classification Board. The film went before the Australian Classification Board on 1 April 1977, and was banned again for the third time. The ban status on the film in Australia has remained largely unchanged since then, due to in part that the film violates Australian
obscenity
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be use ...
laws.
Plot
The film follows a man, who has an intellectual or mental disorder, living alone on a farm in rural Belgium. He demonstrates bizarre behavior from the beginning, such as fastening doll's heads to pigeons, collecting his feces in glass jars and beheading a hen for his own amusement. He is also obsessed with a sow who lives on the farm.
We see him gleefully rolling around in the manure with the sow, and then he rapes her, which his behavior suggests he sees as an intimate and mutually agreeable act. Later, the sow gives birth to a litter of piglets. The man attempts to spoon-feed milk to the piglets, but the piglets prefer to drink directly from the milk bowl. In general, the piglets prefer their mother's company, repeatedly scorning the man's advances. Taking this rejection as an unforgivable personal slight, the man hangs the piglets and leaves their bodies strung up in the open. When the sow discovers the remains of the piglets, she runs madly around the farm squealing. The sow slips into a deep patch in the mud and drowns there.
The man searches for the sow, and becomes visibly distraught when he discovers her dead. He drags the body from the mud, buries it on the farm grounds, and crudely attempts to bury himself on a patch of ground nearby. He gets up, and his grief turns to rage. He rushes around the farm scattering and smashing his belongings from the house, including his jars of waste.
He prepares and vigorously consumes a "tea" made of feces and urine, determinedly climbs a ladder in the barn and hangs himself with a rope. The final scene depicts his spirit floating skyward.
Cast
* Dominique Garny as man
Distribution
Better known by the 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, with the screening upsetting Australian censors.
Because there was no official theatrical, VHS, or until recently DVD release, ''Wedding Trough'' is one of the most obscure movies that is not a
lost film
A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress.
Conditions
During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...
.
Its last film festival appearance was at the 61st
Locarno International Film Festival
The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...
in "Tribute to the Royal Belgian Cinémathèque / Experimental film Competitions of Knokke le Zoute".
German video distributor Camera Obscura and Swedish distributor Njuta Films each released the film on DVD.
Censorship in Australia
In
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, the Perth International Film Festival scheduled a screening of ''Vase de Noces'' in 1975. At the time, film festival submissions did not require approval from Australian censors, however the Western Australian government pressured censors to review the film before the screening. The censors did so, and subsequently refused to classify the film on grounds of obscenity. Festival chairman David Roe and director
Thierry Zéno
Thierry Zéno (born Thierry Jonard; 22 April 1950 – 7 June 2017) , retrieved 10 May 2009. was a The Western Australian Government was not happy that the festival went ahead with the screening, and this incident created a precedent for animosity between the two groups for years to come.Solo für Licht – Vase de noces
The government of Western Australia urged the Perth Film Festival to discontinue their plans to screen
Nagisa Oshima
NaGISA (Natural Geography in Shore Areas or Natural Geography of In-Shore Areas) is an international collaborative effort aimed at inventorying, cataloguing, and monitoring biodiversity of the in-shore area. So named for the Japanese word "nagisa ...
's ''
In the Realm of the Senses
''In the Realm of the Senses'' (french: link=no, L'Empire des sens, Japanese: , ''Ai no Korīda'', "Bullfight of Love") is a 1976 erotic art film written and directed by Nagisa Ōshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of a ...
'', threatening that future festivals would be subject to thorough censorial review in advance, if they went ahead with the screening. As a result of this pressure, the Perth Film Festival decided not to screen Oshima's film. Film festivals in Melbourne and Sydney went on to screen ''
In the Realm of the Senses
''In the Realm of the Senses'' (french: link=no, L'Empire des sens, Japanese: , ''Ai no Korīda'', "Bullfight of Love") is a 1976 erotic art film written and directed by Nagisa Ōshima. It is a fictionalised and sexually explicit treatment of a ...
'' without incident. On 17 December 1976, ''Vase de Noces'' went before the Australian censors again, and again received a judgment of "refused classification". A third such attempt was made a third time on 1 April 1977. But, the Australian censors rejected the film once again, effectively banning its reproduction and dissemination throughout Australia. The film remains banned throughout Australia to this day, and even after more than 40 years of being banned nationwide in the country, this ruling has not been successfully appealed since.