Bawdy and bizarre, this is a good-looking, well-constructed black drama that crosses a medieval mystery with portraits of ignorance and fear. The setting is rural 15th century France. A city lawyer (Colin Firth) finds himself in a society where witches are still burnt at the stake, evil and superstition are kings, women drop their chemises at the merest hint of interest and an animal can be tried and condemned on the same charges as a human. When a pig is accused of killing a young Jewish boy, it seems to the lawyer that the accusation hides a more complex sequence of events involving the human population of the village, but the pig belongs to the Egyptian gipsy girl (Annabi) to whom he has taken a fancy. Watchable and well-considered performances by Firth, Ian Holm, Donald Pleasence, Nicol Williamson and Lysette Anthony make this an interesting companion to films like The Name of the Rose. The squalor of medieval life is convincingly portrayed, while never being allowed to get in the way of the plot.


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