Lamb Movie Storyline. Icelandic couple María (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snaer Gudnason) live with their herd of sheep on a beautiful but remote farm. When they discover a mysterious newborn on their farmland, they decide to keep it and raise it as their own. This unexpected prospect of a new family brings them much joy, before ultimately destroying them.
Lamb is a 2021 internationally co-produced supernatural horror film directed by Valdimar Jóhannsson, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Sjón. The film stars Noomi Rapace, and marks Valdimar Jóhannsson’s feature-length directorial debut. Rapace and Béla Tarr are executive producers. The film will be released in North America on 8 October 2021 by A24.
In June 2020, it was announced that 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 Käsi) 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.
On 4 June 2021, it was announced that the film would premiere as part of the official selection at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section.[9] It premiered at Cannes on 13 July 2021. It is scheduled for release in the United States on 8 October 2021.
Film Review for Lamb
An unsettling discovery in the sheep barn one day gives a young Icelandic farming couple, Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) and Maria (Noomi Rapace), a second chance at happiness, after a tragedy blighted their hopes of starting a family. But this unexpected opportunity for domestic bliss – Ingvar calls it a “gift” – is threatened, first by the arrival of Ingvar’s brother Petur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson), and later by darker, more sinister and unatural forces.
The brilliantly sustained mood and matter-of-fact absurdity of Valdimar Jóhannsson’s impressive debut is slightly let down by a pay-off which doesn’t entirely land. Still, the majority of the picture is strong enough to satisfy audiences with a taste for folk horror oddities, even if the ending isn’t quite as punchy as one might have anticipated.
It’s a supremely confident first feature from Jóhannsson, whose grandparents were Icelandic sheep farmers and who clearly knows his way around livestock – if nothing else, the film is notable for some exceptionally powerful ovine performances. The film was co-written with Icelandic poet, novelist and lyricist Sjón and has a tonal kinship with the work of Robert Eggers (whose next project, The Northman, was also co-written by Sjón). Combining a career-best performance from Noomi Rapace and moments of macabre humour, this is a film which could have cult breakout potential. North American rights have been acquired by A24 and several European territories, including France, Germany and Denmark, were picked up at script stage.
The material, which walks a delicate balance between supernatural thriller and absurdist comedy, is a particularly happy fit for Rapace, whose intense, somewhat tortured acting style has rarely been better used. As Maria, she’s a woman who is initially going through the motions of her life.
It takes a full ten minutes of the film, during in which she has birthed several lambs and driven a tractor, for the character to speak even a few words. Even so, when Maria and Ingvar do stumble through a faltering conversation, it’s clear that they are avoiding talking about the big subject, the cause of the mountainous anguish which looms over them and their isolated little homestead.
Much is left unsaid, in a film which lets the score and the sound design exert a subtle pressure that words would be unlikely to match. And it is to the picture’s considerable benefit that much is also left unshown. The secret of the mysterious arrival in the barn is jealously guarded until the end of the first of the film’s three chapters. And once more is revealed, a certain reticence remains. CGI is used, but for the most part, it is threaded pretty much seamlessly into this homely world of agricultural toil and gentle rhythms. It’s only at the picture’s very end that a CGI element feels somewhat jarring.
The conclusion might prove to be divisive, but for the most part this is a film which fluently explores the terrible uncertainties and terrors of parenting, the savage mutability of nature and the simmering violence of the lambs.
Lamb (2021)
Directed by: Valdimar Jóhannsson
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snaer Gudnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson
Screenplay by: Sjón, Valdimar Jóhannsson
Production Design by: Baldvin Kári
Cinematography by: Eli Arenson
Film Editing by: Agnieszka Glinska
Costume Design by: Margrét Einarsdóttir
Makeup Department: Chelo
Music by: Þórarinn Guðnason
MPAA Rating: R for some bloody violent images and sexuality / nudity.
Distributed by: A24 Films (North America)
Release Date: July 13, 2021 (Cannes), October 8, 2021 (United States)
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