On the Bowery: Lost and Found Films of Sara Driver - When Pigs Fly - 35MM

Dedicated to “The ghosts who walk with us”, and inspired by Topper, When Pigs Fly is perhaps Driver’s most conventional film. Joe Strummer scores Pigs, which is set in an east coast port town (actually Munich) full of Irish pubs and empty fishing yards, captured beautifully by cinematographer Robby Mueller. Marty (Alfred Molina) is a struggling jazz musician living in a mess with his dog, and the opening sequence crosscuts between their dreams as they sleep, full of jazz and cocktails. Frank (Seymour Cassel) is a stingy, ill tempered bar owner where Shelia, Marty’s girlfriend is a go-go dancer. After discovering an old rocking chair in the back shed of the bar, Shelia gives it to Marty for his house, unaware it would come equipped with a pair of ghosts, Lily (Marianne Fathfull) and Ruthy (Rachel Bella). When Pigs Fly is a quiet piece, always a gloomy gray sky, and a Helmut Newton-esque call girl standing on the peak of the town’s bridge, perhaps a local German model?  The characters are sympathetic and genuine, struggling for closure. As Molina walks with his inherited ghosts, he sees the past of his town, his family, and the experience is equally whimsical and grave. – Mary Hanlon