Lamb

 

Valdimar Jóhannsson's film debut, Lamb, is unsettling and disorienting, evoking feelings of uncertainty and distress. But it's also beautifully made and quite a story.

Noomi Rapace (of The Girl With .... series) plays Maria, the sturdy wife of an Icelandic farmer Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) with whom she raises sheep and plants potatoes on a sprawling and remote farm. They are childless, but we discover deep into the film that they were not always. Their lives change dramatically one day as they are in one of their barns helping ewes with birthing. And the film, which aside from a curiously ominous prologue, takes a turn away from reality toward the supernatural.

What audience members do with Johannsson's film, he is also co-writer of the screenplay, will depend on how much grace they are willing to give the filmmaker and the attractive young couple, whom Johannsson has invested generous amounts of kindness and fortitude.

Still, some viewers will undoubtedly feel betrayed by them, especially Maria, whose drastic action midway through the film signals darkness will ultimately descend in this land of endless daylight, where the young couple tell a visitor they have rediscovered happiness.