A student is transporting guinea pigs on a train that needs to make a stop at Pupki train station. Due to bureaucratic reasons, the guinea pigs must remain at the station.

 

“Pigs Will Be Pigs” is a witty, dynamic silent comedy. At the same time it mocks narrow-mindedness, provincialism and Soviet bureaucracy driven by disorder and sabotage to complete absurdity. Comedy is a rare genre among the preserved Ukrainian cinema of the silent period, as they were the first to be banned even before they were released due to their criticism and mockery of the then social issues. Today, “Pigs Will Always Be Pigs” is one of the best representatives of the genre. Saturated with stubborn local norms and happily self-distracted from any notion of Communist ideology. Long considered lost until it turned up in the German Federal Archives in 2015, Shmain’s modest film liberally assaults and mocks Soviet bureaucracy for its self-important idiocies, from a disrespectful provincial perspective.