31 Days of Halloween: Lamb

2021,  Valdimar Jóhannsson (Harmsaga) -- download

Two things to begin this blog post.

1. THIS is the kind of movie I think most people will call "elevated horror".

2. What the FUUUUCK ? (in my best Robotman / Cliff Steele voice)

Yeah, Marmy didn't call this a horror movie, and was more fully into the WTF exclamations. But I spent most of the movie being so fucking utterly wigged out, I couldn't think about it other than as a horror movie.

So, elevated first. Yeah, this movie is so stylish, and well formed. Its so beautifully shot, the eerie empty landscapes of Iceland taking the forefront, the cold endless daylight just adding to the mood in ways all the overhead forests and still lakes can never do as well. There is so much done in silence, so much done with mostly empty scenes. 

And then there is the premise, presented utterly seriously despite the otherworldly concept. A couple who raise sheep in remote rural Iceland are present for the birthing of a lamb, from a sheep, but with the body of a human girl. Only her head and one arm is ... sheep. Yes, a human baby with a lamb's head is born from a sheep in the flock. But that's not the WTF, as it is only when both of them fully decide to integrate her into their family do we find ourselves WTFing.

There was trauma in their past, as they obviously lost a child at some point. Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason, The Swan) pulls a crib out of the barn when the child, growing preternaturally quickly (as a lamb should), has to be moved from their bed to its own. And eventually Maria (Noomi Rapace, Prometheus) dresses the lamb, who they now call Ada after their dead child, in their child's clothing. They are raising a lamb-child hybrid thingie without questioning it, without summoning authorities, without seeking answers.

And then there is the poor lost mama sheep. She bleats and bleats and bleats the loss of her lamb. She gets out of her pen and sits beneath Ada's window and bleats and bleats and bleats. There is something to be said for the animal wranglers in this movie. The sheep emote more story in their longing glances, in their fearful stares, than all the human actors did in I Am Lisa. I am not being facetious; these sheep say so much in their soulful eyes.

And then Maria gets frustrated by the grieving mama sheep and shoots her between the eyes, burying her in a nearby field. Ingvar never asks about it.

Out of the blue, Ingvar's brother Pétur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Fortitude) shows up to stay at their farm. He's a layabout type, kicked out of a car by his layabout friends. They introduce Ada to him like she was a normal girl, nothing to see here, we are just raising a lamb headed girl child while eating mutton stew in front of her. Nope, nothing out of the ordinary. Pétur's first reaction is shock, horror and even a brief moment where he takes the child out into a field and points a rifle at her head. Then he stares into those emotive eyes, and the next morning the two are found snuggling together on a chair. They even go fishing together.

Where is the horror? Well, for me, it came from the silent/loud voice in my head screaming, "WTF !! Aren't you wondering about where the child came from? WHAT ABOUT IT'S FATHER ?!?!" Marmy kept on commenting on trolls (it is Iceland) and yeah, there was a few snickering comments about sheep shaggers, but we know something dark must be out there in the wilderness. How could it be anything else but?

And eventually dada sheep-man does show.

I really enjoyed this movie, as much for the way it was directed, as for how much it challenged my brain. Most will not enjoy it, and not many will see it as horror. Most will see it slow and pointless, but for me so much could be said of how the mind, when irreparably damaged, will find anything to cling to, to repair itself. Much is left unanswered at the end of the movie, but also leaves us lots of room to fill in our own stories.