LAMB

Director: Valdimar Jóhannsson

2021, Iceland/Sweden, 106, R

Screenwriter: Sjón & Valdimar Jóhannsson

Cast: Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson

 

Even after 51 years of showing films at Cinestudio, there are some new movies that still manage to surprise us (and our audiences)! Take Lamb, for example – set in isolated rural Iceland, it is a darkly funny story that is part family drama and part enchanted folk tale. Noomi Rapace (Lisbeth Salander  in the Swedish Stieg Larsson films) and Hilmer Snaer play young sheep farmers silently grieving the loss of their child. When one of their ewes give birth to an unusual hybrid creature, they take her in and care for her as their own. Time goes by in an idyllic fairy tale, until baby Ada’s Uncle Pétur comes for a visit, bringing with him the stark reality of the outside world… Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard’s Award for Originality, and the Palm Dog Grand Prix (for Panda.)

“Jóhannsson’s atmospheric folk horror/ deadpan comedy is both explosively funny and spine-tinglingly eerie.”