Lamb
Directed by Valdimar Jóhannsson
★★★½
Somehow provocative in its bland domesticity, Lamb is a surreal examination of family through the guise of Icelandic folk drama. Though a curious little fucker, the film contains a surprising amount of heart and exhibits beautiful cinematography and captivating performances.
From the moment our screen casts us into the Iceland countryside, Lamb shrouds the viewer in an off-kilter aesthetic, much like the mist that looms over the terrain, almost foreboding in its docile subtlety. There is always a feeling of mystery and paranoia in the air, though this film is no horror, despite how it is being construed.
Maria and Ingvar, played with empathetic stability by Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason respectively, work on a farm in rural Iceland and despite numerous failed attempts, the couple have never successfully conceived a child. One day, a sheep on their farm gives birth to a (let’s call it) unique little lamb. The couple, Maria specifically, is immediately attached to it and takes to caring for it in an abnormal manner, leading to a surreal and sneakily funny film about parenthood and family at its core.
The cinematography is quite brilliant in the way that it effectively keeps the viewer from seeing the full picture of what is born, opting instead to remain slightly above what the viewer is dying to see, leaving it up to the imagination. When we finally get the full picture, though shocking, it’s not an unexpected sight but an anticipated one.
However, the film also is a demonstrative example of humans' selfish and parasitic relationship with nature and the assured repercussions that will undoubtedly occur. Nature is on full display throughout the runtime, and the camera will frequently cut away to the couple’s dog or cat for long moments at a time for uneasy reaction shots to the goings on, almost as if they are the audience conduit rather than the humans that inhabit the screen. Though there are obviously no subtitles for the sheep in the film (although, with this kind of movie, I wouldn’t have been shocked), we are able to get a sense of how they feel at certain moments and how things affect them. In these frequent moments, first time director Valdimar Jóhannsson effectively portrays the animals as more than subservient beings to their human counterparts, but rather fully coherent and emotionally affected beings.
As a whole, the film is not a horror, despite its flawed marketing. Yet, there is a constant quiet turmoil in its vast isolated setting. Though it may be muted, there is a defining uneasiness about Lamb that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. Genre hopefuls will be disappointed with the film's refusal to fall into familiar trappings, but the film is definitely terrifying. Not in the jump scare filled or gore infested way horror films of late present scares to their audiences, but in the way it holds up a mirror to humanity’s cause and effect relationship with nature and how the decisions we make now will impact us later on down the line. And there is no way of knowing for sure when. That reality is more terrifying than any film about a masked killer or conjured spirit could ever be.
