Director: Mascha Halberstad
Starring: Hiba Ghafry, Kees Prins, Jelka van Houten, Henry van Loon, Matsen Montsma, Loes Luca
Distributor: Vendetta Films
Runtime: 72 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Mild themes and crude humour

A nine-year-old girl gets a pig named Oink as a gift from her grandfather.

Once upon a time, almost 30 years ago, audiences fell in love with a pig named Babe. Then there was a sequel, Babe in the City. This time we have Babe in the Netherlands.

Knorr/Oink runs for 72 minutes, a brief enough time for youngsters to sit through the film. It is very much a film for youngsters, perhaps younger rather than older, who can identify with the main characters, nine-year-old Babs and her neighbour, Tijn. We might remember that the impact of Babe in the 1990s was that a lot of young audiences were definitely put off eating meat, the horror of thinking about eating Babe. But, this was only a temporary conversion to a vegetarian perspective. And, it will probably be the same with Oink, though there is quite some dialogue about the horror of eating meat.

The film opens with a young TV commentator introducing the sausage making competition in the town. The two rival butchers become rather violent as the proceedings continue, and the judges expel them for 25 years. Now the 25 years have passed.

Babs is bespectacled and forthright, while Tijn is better behaved. They both practise their cooking in the shed adjacent to the family home. The mother is very busy and the father continually doing crossword puzzles. Then an old man, looking like a refugee from a cowboy film, arrives home. This grandfather is one of the men from the sausage competition 25 years earlier. TIjn discovers his mincing machine in his luggage and the grandfather showing how it works with vegetable sausages. Peace at the vegetarian table.

Babs gets a playful pet pig, Oink. She takes it into a dog training school where he is a failure, not seeming to comprehend ‘sit’ or ‘stay’. But, when Babs offers him treats, he’s obedience personified. He does not perform well at the dog tests – but wins over everyone when he behaves well for love of Babs.

This is the first stop-motion animated film made in the Netherlands – very labour-intensive in the making, but the characters are limited in expression to movements of the eyes, the mouth, the nods of the head. So, simple animation.

But, the competition is on again and there is the compere from 25 years earlier, with much less hair but still enthusiastic.

Of course, we realise (some sooner than others) that grandfather is there for the competition, especially as the rival butcher is still operating in the town. This leads to all kinds of adventures, pursuits, grandfather kidnapping Oink, mother and father, rather tough aunt (grandfather’s sister), Babs, Tijn and a tractor driver all in pursuit.

Now, a challenge for the reviewer, of how to put this appropriately and delicately. Oink is prone to exceeding wind and splashing poop all over the place. Of course, this is key to the final competition where the vegetarian message seems to be, rather graphically, ‘Eat s**t’. (The classification is PG with the alert that there is some crude humour!) We can say that humour in the Netherlands is down-to-earth and robust.