The love that speaks its name

A brave and original, if never entirely successful attempt to translate Enda Walsh’s acclaimed stage play to the screen, the home-grown Disco Pigs certainly qualifies as one of the more intense and heartfelt native film projects of recent times. The tragic tale of two inseparable lifelong friends born in the same hospital on the same day, and their catastrophic growing apart, the film is brought to life by two highly committed and energetic performances from young Irish talents Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy.

Cassidy, a one-time Glenroe luminary, will be familiar to audiences as the sacrificial lamb in Atom Egoyan’s serial-killer psychodrama Felicia’s Journey, while Murphy has come to more recent prominence with spirited turns in On The Edge, Saltwater and Sweety Barrett.

Both parties are afforded plenty of space to express their range in Disco Pigs, in what are two strikingly tricky roles: the film’s twin-like protagonists, Pig (Murphy) and Runt (Cassidy) have, over the course of seventeen years without a moment’s separation, developed a telepathic closeness and evolved their own language, an extremely peculiar sort of Corkonian/babytalk hybrid. Cassidy and Murphy emote away in this strange tongue, to occasionally moving effect, as the movie charts the gradual dissolution of their ball-and-chain-like relationship.

Though likely to prove a shade too oblique for massive viewing figures, the unique world created by Disco Pigs remains close to the hearts of both actors. As Cassidy explains: “The first three pages of the script were in Runt’s voiceover, in this special language of theirs, and I found it really strange at first, it was completely new to me, but on page three I fell totally in love with it. I’m a complete sucker for love stories but I don’t like corny ones. This one is different – it’s dark and interesting and written totally from the heart. It’s written so honestly and there’s no pretentiousness.”

Murphy concurs: “The simplicity of the thing is what strikes you – the two of their lives are so entwined they can’t exist without each other. But it’s an unhealthy obsession he has with her and

it can only lead to disaster if she tries to break free: like any love that’s so much and so all-consuming it becomes harmful and dangerous in

a way.”

The most obvious challenge posed by Disco Pigs was that of finding the rhythms of its extremely strange lingo: “The language isn’t instantly easy to follow,” concedes Cassidy, “but the more you get to know it the more the meanings become familiar: it’s like Shakespeare, it’s impenetrable at first and then after a few goes it seems entirely natural. And with the Cork accent, it’s really musical and you can emphasise words more and it just sounds beautiful.”

For his part, Murphy confesses that: “I really wasn’t sure whether it would translate to the big screen, but everything about it was expanded and changed. The play only took place over the course of two nights, the film covers their entire lives. And I love the way Enda writes: he really cuts straight to the core of a character in a way that’s quite rare. And even though Disco Pigs isn’t a hugely dialogue-heavy piece, the characters speak with great conviction and great truth and in a language that’s beautiful to listen to.”

A vital prerequisite for the film’s success was that its two leads attained the level of onscreen chemistry Pig and Runt needed. “Elaine and I spent a lot of time together, just chatting and hanging out,” confirms Murphy. “I put a lot of store in that; people forming a relationship prior to filming. I think it transposes onto the film if you’re comfortable with a person.

“I think anyone who’s ever seen Elaine on screen can just tell from her face and eyes that she’s brilliant at evoking emotion. I think she really conveys Runt’s innocence and the love that she has for Pig. At the same time, though, she has this facility to see past him which he doesn’t have in relation to her: he thinks they’ll run off together and live in their own utopia. When he’s forced to face the real world, he feels threatened and the only way he can react is with violence. Runt always calms him, but she can’t ‘save’ him and he can’t save himself.”

“He’s definitely the weaker of the two,” points out Cassidy, “she’s deeper, and more in touch with her feelings. She’s more spiritual in a way which he can’t really understand, and she finds

it funny the way he sees everything in black

and white. I think their story reflects a lot of

relationships in the sense that when you meet someone, in the beginning, your relationship keeps growing and growing. When you get past a certain stage, if you’re not prepared to keep changing with the relationship, if one person stays the same, it’s going to end. It’s so intense and unhealthy because they haven’t developed properly as individuals – but I fall for the beauty in the story and I just forget all about the

darkness.”

Disco Pigs is now showing at selected cinemas