Director: Nelson van Herzele
Cast: Lars van der Wolf, Dries Vanderhulst & Luiz Fassin
Running time: 6mins
Nelson van Herzele’s Brother, may I have some oats too? is a strange, often off-putting exercise in intertextuality, which will divide opinions. On the one hand, unless you are terminally online, you probably haven’t heard of the original Brother, may i have some oats? – a copypasta meme, which emerged around a decade ago, when a painting of two large pigs was shared in 4chan. Users began writing conversation between them – with the more poetic of the resulting prose ending up translated into Flemish for this film.
Audiences watching without the knowledge of this lengthy exchange of abstract, comedic notions will likely feel uncomfortable with what they are being shown. In the best-case scenario, they will treat it as an inconsistent standalone metaphor, which sometimes loses track of the parametres it establishes for itself. At worst, they will feel like they are watching the realisation of an in-joke they are not party too – and while it might be a mere six minutes in length, nothing quite drags like being in the presence of someone who revels in the exclusivity of their humour.
On the other hand, however, if you are part of the exalted club to know what the hell is going on here, Brother, may I have some oats too? presents a more interesting prospect. As an experiment in shaping and re-shaping the meaning of another text – one which was itself created, layer upon layer, by internet users adapting each other’s absurdist/satirical web-posts – it is an interesting modernisation of the cinematic adaptation.
As film studios scramble for new intellectual properties to plunder – scraping the barrel between bastardised novels, comic books, video games and even children’s toys to diminishing returns – Van Herzele might have given us a parodic insight into the next next-big-thing on the list of Hollywood executives: memes. But while there are interesting inflections to the original copypasta here, in the hands of a risk-averse studio – rather than some creative young upstart like Van Herzele – nothing could sound more dreadful.
Fortunately, we are in rather more adventurous territory here. In Van Herzele’s own words, he aimed to translate the meme into a dark Beckettian parable. Samuel Beckett seems a perfect choice from a practical standpoint, as he is known as much for his minimalism and for his bleak perspective on life. On a minimal budget, with a small team, delivering a story in a maximum of one or two locations makes life a lot easier, and allows the filmmakers to concentrate on honing other areas of their craft.
At the same time, the dialogue practically comes ready-made; with Van Herzele taking his pick from reems of web-posting to translate some of the best-written (and most appropriate to his aims) tracts. So, what exactly did he do to adapt the story?
Perhaps the most interesting change rendered has been the decision to have the scenario played out by two humans, in costume pig-noses. This allows a genuinely enjoyable cast to get their teeth into the absurdity of the situation with reckless abandon. But more importantly, like Andreas van Riet’s adaptation of The Metamorphosis, this decision serves to remove a kind of protective layer of uncanny that usually makes anthropomorphic stories slightly more comfortable to consume. We might spot similarities between us and the protagonists of The Metamorphosis or Animal Farm – but recognising that is often a kind of amusing curiosity: I am like a pig, insect, or other creature; but I am still comfortable knowing I really sit higher up the food chain.
The thing about Brother, may I have some oats too? is Estragon (a believably famished Lars van der Wolf) and Vladimir (the enjoyably obnoxious Dries Vanderhulst) are oevrtly not pigs. They begin the film simply as two people, who put on pig-noses at the start of their extremely theatrical performance. They might still guzzle oats by shoving their snout directly into the bowl, but they still sit upright at a dinner table, dressed in hats, shirts and trousers.
As the story progresses, Estragon – who has not been served any oats at all – tries to convince Vladimir (who has a false paunch stuffed in the front of his shirt) that he is being fattened for slaughter. Vladimir haughtily snorts at the idea – having been presented with more food than his brother, he has internalised this to believe he is somehow ordained by a higher power, with his extra rations a reward for his virtuous spirit, and an indicator that soon he will ascend to a higher state of being.
Estragon tries in vain to persuade his portly brother that what actually awaits is the barn of no return – a place he witnessed first-hand, when his human captors dragged him there to observe them eating another ‘pig’. The performatively grisly scene features Boer (the farmer, played by brilliant pantomime villain Luiz Fassin) gurning and gnashing his way through some white meat, while Estragon watches on in horror.
In a world where we are expected to take these as two literal pigs, this makes little sense: and while cruelty does not always make sense, here, it seems to be deployed as a means for the farmer to reinforce Estragon’s place in this nightmarish scenario. You are meat. Observe.
But farmers don’t work to convince pigs that is their lot in life. They would struggle to understand the lesson, if they could grasp it at all. There are scenarios where the powerful throwing their weight about this make sense – just not in relation to animals. It’s something which warrants more thought later.
First, though, the film builds to its ending. Without getting into spoilers, Van Herzele delivers his own conclusion, which he says aimed to underline a sense of futility haunting the film’s central metaphor – with two hats remaining at the table after their wearers, who believed their differences mattered, have long gone.
This seems to suggest that Van Herzele sees all discussion and debate as materially pointless – as whatever our class and world-view, we end up as food for the worms. It’s a little underwhelming as a thesis, having been popularised by a cynical economic and political mainstream, looking to excuse and naturalise a system that means its members generally get to live a lot longer and in more comfort before the re-enter the void. Sure, we might all find the ultimate form of equality waiting for us with oblivion, but since we’re here – and as far as anyone knows, this is the only shot at ‘here’ we will get – philosophical debates that might lead us all to be able to enjoy it better, and for more time, are not materially irrelevant.
Fortunately, Van Herzele’s chosen medium of intertextuality, and an ever-evolving meme – arguably allow us to interpret his film in a less limited, and more controversial manner – whether he meant for it or not. When a story about pigs sees them ultimately realise the farmer is some great, inescapable force that will consume them however fat or thin they are; the metaphor is a little fraught – but it still can be waived through by our minds. Sure, we know that there is nothing natural about the industrial slaughter of animals – but livestock have been selectively bred to the extent they would scarcely be able to live as wild animals. Slaughter could be argued as being an inescapable part of a domestic pig’s existence in that case.
But we just saw people inserted into this process; treated as livestock until they accepted their fate as part of the natural world. We saw other people divide and rule them, fostering a grim Calvinist ideology to facilitate their cooperation – and resort to ritual violence and torture when they needed to further reinforce their dominance. But at no point did we really see a natural process. Nothing inevitable, or even necessary. Just a pronouncedly artificial system of exploitation, excused by a fatalism dressed up as philosophy – a grotesque reflection of life under late capitalism.
Estragon and Vladimir are not pigs. We are not pigs. We don’t need to live like them.
At multiple times during this review, I have caught myself mid-sentence, and thought: “God, what are you doing analysing a 4chan meme?” But while it might not make any sense to the uninitiated (as I was before I actually saw this film), Nelson van Herzele has actually presented something really compelling here (especially for a first-time student project). In the end, by presenting the story’s nihilistic kind of worldview against such a patently theatrical, fake scenario, he has served up what could be seen as a biting critique of futility ideology. With Beckett’s work not only being characterised by futility, but also a deep sense of empathy and humanity, that potential makes Brother, can I have some oats too? much more fitting of the director’s framing as Beckettian.