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Lamb

Lamb is a foggy creepshow about a farming couple in the Icelandic foothills who happen upon a 'gift' from nature in the form of a child, and....well, urm, let's continue. Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason star as Maria and Ingvar, the childless couple, and their routine has them miserably plodding along with the farm chores in this oddly treeless and rocky land. As dull as this might sound, it's actually a quietly fascinating start to the film, which may be down to the oft-mentioned 'otherworldly' landscape. Icelandic folk must be well pissed off with everyone going on about their topography.

The opening is a slow tracking shot through a snow-swept exterior, via a herd of tiny horses. We end up in a barn full of frightened sheep (I guess they're always frightened) with the hint of something off screen - the eyes of the sheep are a clever way to suggest this. Later, as Maria and Ingvar are birthing lambs, an 'arrival' puts their gobs well into smacked position. For a good further 15 mins or so, I'm thinking, 'nah, surely not' until, yes, we finally see the child. Now, I'm sure the writers (Sjón and director Valdimar Jóhannsson) didn't plan for there to be titters and snorts, but unfortunately, at least at the reveal of the child, Ada, quite a few were had (I felt a bit immature but my mind wandered to Marenghi once more and Skipper, the Eyechild).

The 'family' are content, except for the annoyance of the birth mother - A SHEEP - constantly bleating outside Ada's window. Maria sorts out this problem and things are going well until the visit of Ingvar's brother, Pétur, played by Björn Hlynur Haraldsson. Pétur is pretty much every member of the audience when he asks, "What the fuck is going on here?" some time after encountering Ada. Ingvar's reply of "Happiness" doesn't quite scan with Pétur, but after his initial shock, he reluctantly accepts this situation.

There's a lot of food for thought on the intentions of the filmmakers here. I'm guessing it has its roots in Nordic folk tales, but it could be read as an anti-disablist statement or a pro-nature tract. Maria's insistence that "Ada is a gift" is no doubt magnified by the loss of her children (we see her tending to a small plot of graves at one point - one of which has the name Ada on the cross), but nature takes an alternate view on her understanding of this. And here's where I'll keep my trap shut, suffice to say, this is an odd, captivating film that will stay with you days after watching.

Lamb opens on Oct 14th at the Luna and Palace cinemas.

[A slightly different version of this review was published on Film Ink - https://www.filmink.com.au/reviews/lamb/]

See also:

Try Hlynur Pálmason's A White, White Day (2019) for more Icelandic atmosphere, and Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006) for no reason at all...

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