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Lamb (2021 film)
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = Lamb
| image = Lamb (2021 film) poster.jpg
| caption = U.S. theatrical release poster
| native_name =
| director = Valdimar Jhannsson
| producer =
| writer =
| screenplay =
| story =
| based_on =
| starring =
| narrator =
| music = rarinn Gunason
| cinematography = Eli Arenson
| editing = Agnieszka Glinska
| production_companies =
| distributor =
| released =
| runtime = 106 minutes
| country =
| language = Icelandic
| budget =
| gross = $3.2 million
}}
'Lamb' is a 2021 folk horror film directed by Valdimar Jhannsson, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Sjn. The films plot is about the birth of a human/sheep hybrid of mysterious origin and the couple who adopts the child as their own. An international co-production between Iceland, Sweden, and Poland, the film stars Noomi Rapace, and marks Valdimar's feature-length directorial debut. Rapace and Bla Tarr act as executive producers. After premiering at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, the film was released in Iceland on 24 September 2021. It was selected as the Icelandic entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards.
Plot
In Iceland, a herd of horses is spooked by an unknown, loudly-breathing entity that makes its way to a barn. Later, farmer Mara and her husband Ingvar are shocked when one of their pregnant sheep gives birth to a human/sheep hybrid with a mostly human body and a lamb's head and right arm.
Mara and Ingvar take the hybrid infant in as their own and grow to love her as their own child, naming her Ada after Maria's deceased daughter. Ada's biological mother becomes a nuisance, attempting to contact Ada constantly and loitering outside the couple's home. Shortly after an incident where Ada goes missing and is later found next to the mother, Mara shoots Ada's mother and buries her body in a shallow, unmarked grave. Unbeknownst to her, Ingvar's brother Ptur, who arrives at the farmhouse shortly before the killing, witnesses the incident before sleeping in the barn.
Ptur, who makes sexual advances towards Mara in an attempt to rekindle a past affair, is very disturbed by Ada and maintains the belief that "it's an animal, not a child". Ingvar claims the whole situation has given them happiness. Increasingly angered and disturbed by Mara and Ingvar's attachment to Ada, Ptur takes her on an early morning walk while everyone is asleep with the intention of shooting her. After having a tearful change of heart, however, he is later seen soundly sleeping with Ada and soon becomes an uncle to her.
One evening, while Mara, Ptur, and Ingvar are having a drunken party, Ada witnesses the unknown entity from before near the barn. The entity then proceeds to kill the family's dog before taking the family's gun. After the party, a drunk Ingvar goes to bed. Ptur makes sexual advances towards Mara once again. When she rejects his advances, Ptur reveals that he witnessed Mara killing Ada's sheep mother, trying to blackmail Mara into having sex with him by threatening to reveal this to Ada.
Mara pretends to be seduced by Ptur in order to lock him in a closet. Mara drives him to the bus stop the next morning and sends him away, insisting she is committed to a new start with her family. After waking up to find Mara and Ptur missing, Ingvar takes Ada to fix the broken tractor. On their way back home, the entity, revealed to be a ram/man hybrid and Ada's biological father, emerges and shoots Ingvar in the neck, before taking a tearful Ada with him and walking away into the wilderness.
Mara returns home and finds that Ingvar and Ada are missing. She searches for the two and discovers Ingvar before he dies, and despairs at the loss of her husband and new child. Mara searches the wilderness in vain, before closing her tear-filled eyes.
Cast
* Noomi Rapace as Mara
* Hilmir Snr Gunason as Ingvar
* Bjrn Hlynur Haraldsson as Ptur
* Ingvar Eggert Sigursson as Man on Television
Production
In February 2019, Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snr Gunason had joined the cast of the film, with Valdimar Jhannsson directing from a screenplay he wrote alongside Sjn.
Release
In June 2020, the film was sold across Europe in the New Europe Film Sales agency. The film was picked up by distributors in Czech Republic (Artcam), France (The Jokers), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Slovakia (ASFK), Germany (Koch Films), Poland (Gutek Film), Benelux (The Searchers), Hungary (Vertigo), Austria (Filmladen), Denmark (Camera Film), Lithuania (Scanorama), former Yugoslavia (Five Stars/Demiurg), Estonia (Must Ksi) and Latvia (Kino Bize) with MUBI acquiring the distribution rights for Latin America (excluding Mexico), Turkey, India, the UK and Ireland. In July 2021, A24 acquired North American distribution rights to the film.
The film had its world premiere on 13 July 2021 as part of the official selection at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in the 'Un Certain Regard' section. It was released in the United States on 8 October 2021. The film also had a special screening of BFI London Film Festival on 15 October 2021
Although the film was not released in Hong Kong, the Chinese-language title used in the Taiwanese market drew attention on the internet for being homonymous with "penis" , with social media users joking about the awkwardness of mentioning the title and coming up with other phallic puns. A meme emerged where various pictures were edited to resemble the film's poster and given similar titles that were also puns, often on various explicit and obscene words; additionally, a government environmental mascot, , used the meme on a Facebook post calling for less wasteful use of notebooks. Writing for 'The News Lens', Bruce Lai identified aspects of the film that fit with this interpretation of the title, connecting the entity (Ada's father) with beings in Greek mythology such as satyrs and fauns, particularly the god Pan, that exhibit a similar half-human, half-animal appearance as well as hyper-masculine characteristics, and perceived Mara's relationship with Ada as trying to fill the absence of her human daughter, drawing parallels to penis envy.
Reception
Box office
In the United States and Canada, 'Lamb' was released alongside 'No Time to Die' and was debuted to $1 million from 583 theaters, finishing seventh and marking the best-ever opening weekend for an Icelandic film in the U.S.Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 127 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Darkly imaginative and brought to life by a pair of striking central performances, 'Lamb' shears expectations with its singularly wooly chills." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 33 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".David Fear of 'Rolling Stone' described the film as "the odd, unsettling, soon-to-be-your-cult-movie-of-choice straight outta Iceland", and wrote: "Its the sweetest, most touching waking nightmare youve ever experienced." Jeannette Catsoulis of 'The New York Times' called the film an "atmospheric debut feature", and added that it "plays like a folk tale and thrums like a horror movie." She wrote: "Slow-moving and inarguably nutty, 'Lamb' nevertheless wields its atavistic power with the straightest of faces". Michael O'Sullivan of 'The Washington Post' also described the film as a "haunting, atmospheric feature debut", and wrote: "Johannsson has a way of imbuing everything animate and inanimate, even an empty doorway with a kind of living, breathing spirit." He gave the film a score of 3/4 stars. Katie Walsh of the 'Los Angeles Times' wrote: "Ominous mountains look down upon the pastoral arena where this fantastical yet meditative rural drama plays out; its a modern folk tale about the strange realities of life and death that such a closeness to nature affords." Joe Morgenstern of 'The Wall Street Journal' described the film as "a shaggy lamb story expertly told." Kevin Maher of 'The Times' gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "The director, Valdimar Johannsson, treats the admittedly ridiculous material with a convincing, deadpan seriousness and is supported at every step by his star performer on impeccable form."
Richard Brody of 'The New Yorker' was more critical of the film, saying that it "preens and strains to be admired even as it reduces its characters to pieces on a game board and its actors to puppets." Barry Hertz of 'The Globe and Mail' criticized the film's ending as being "like a parody of an A24 horror movie", and wrote: "I wont make the obvious joke and say its baaad. But its sheep thrills are mutton to write home about, either." Alison Willmore of 'Vulture' wrote: "By the time the final act rolls around, 'Lamb' approaches the idea that theres a price that must be paid with a shrugging diffidence rather than impending doom. Its such an underwhelming conclusion to a film with such a compelling start."
Some critics have compared the film to a reversal of the Ancient Greek Minotaur myth, further linking the mythology of "Lamb" to Hellenic origins.
See also
* List of submissions to the 94th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
* List of Icelandic submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
References
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