The Hour of the Pig

Fifteenth-century France. Richard Courtois, a lawyer in Paris, moves to the country for a quieter life. Quiet is not what he gets: the town has its own accounts, its own killings and its own vices. The case put in front of him is a strange one. A pig is on trial for the death of a boy, and Courtois is to defend it. The animal belongs to Samira, an outsider. The further he digs, the clearer it becomes that the court is not trying a pig but a woman the town wants rid of. Leslie Megahey directs; a hundred and twelve minutes, with Colin Firth as Courtois and Amina Annabi as Samira, and Ian Holm, Donald Pleasence and Nicol Williamson in the cast. Putting animals on trial was a real medieval practice.