Against the background of a gloomy port and a seedy Irish-American bar, a fantastic story unravels in which the spirits of the dead meddle in the world of the living as if in a children’s film.The spirits of Lilly (Marianne Faithfull to a tee) and the little girl Ruthie are imprisoned in a disorderly shed behind ‘The Rose of Erin’ bar. They are magically chained to the old rocking chair in which they died. Lilly was once the wife of the bar’s unreliable owner Frank (Seymour Cassel). Via Sheila, who worked as a dancer in the bar, the rocking chair came into the possession of the failed jazz musician Marty, in whose house Sheila rents a room. He lives with his dog Dolphy in a chaotic household and sleeps most of his time away Sheila make friends with the ghosts of the rocking chair and help Lilly get her own back on her husband Frank.The film is occasionally gloomy and dramatic, but it also has the air and the imagination of a fairy-tale; a combination of dream and nightmare. Cameraman Robbie Muller was responsible for the ‘dark’ yet humorous fairy-tale mood. When Pigs Fly was shot in Hamburg, representing the average American port.Deborah Young (Variety): ‘Pic’s grungy, post-punk signature gives a modicum of style more comic than disturbing.’
