29/04/2022 - Aik Karapetian gifts us with a romantic comedy featuring a man chained up in a pigsty – it’s no Notting Hill 2, but we’ll take it

Advertised as Latvia’s first horror film, Aik Karapetian’s Samuel’s Travels [+see also:
trailer
film profile] still opens with a close-up of a pig’s perky bottom, quickly establishing the fact that things are about to get weird. Now making it to Estonia – specifically, the Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival, which takes place from 29 April-1 May – it’s occasionally funny, occasionally romantic, and just odd through and through. If that’s what Latvia has to offer as far as genre cinema is concerned, they should just keep on churning them out.

The story starts a bit like another take on Hostel – a good-looking foreigner (Belgian actor Kevin Janssens, so memorable as a nudist campsite handyman in Patrick [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: GoCritic! Interview: Tim Mi…
interview: Tim Mielants
film profile]) makes the mistake of venturing alone into Eastern Europe, looking for his biological father. One unfortunate encounter with the aforementioned pig later, he has to deal not just with the unhappy animal, but also with its owner (Laura Silina), who has been chasing it through the woods. So far, so very meet-cute, as the girl even speaks some broken English, it seems.

“The only one disappointed by the recent turn of events was the piglet. He would have preferred to be devoured by local wolves, rather than return to his former boring, filthy, beast-like life,” observes the soothing voice-over. But the girl’s name is Kirke, and all children know what that mythical enchantress did to Odysseus’s crew before. Soon, this shy attraction is interrupted by her father, and as no one in this family wants to see Samuel go, they chain him up in a pigsty. That’s precisely why one should always read the comments on Airbnb.

It’s not exactly the cheeriest of situations, and plenty of lashings soon follow, but this film is neither too dark nor another example of torture porn, a genre now blissfully taking a break. Karapetian’s portrayal of the locals is drily funny, as these are not – with some exceptions – exactly bad people. They are just practical, and poor Samuel happens to be in great shape. Some would probably flinch when coming across a naked “foreigner” in a pigsty, loudly expressing his wish to get out. Others? They will just want to buy him. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends,” the great Maya Angelou used to say. Well, almost.

But here’s the thing – as a slave, Samuel can finally let go of all of the pressures in his life. Here is a man who has clearly been looking for something for a while now: his father, some meaning. Now, things get much simpler. But Karapetian opts for a bittersweet ending instead, an interesting choice given that his protagonist starts communicating with pigs, like those sheep in Babe, at one point. For some, this desire to leave, to search for pastures new – felt by humans and animals alike, apparently – might go around in circles, threatening any stability they are trying to build. Or it might never leave.

Samuel’s Travels was produced by Latvia’s Mistrus Media and co-produced by Polar Bear (Belgium). Its sales have been entrusted to LevelK.