There are few film studios that know how to sell premises quite like A24. Everything about the Icelandic film Lamb (2021) seems absurd enough to make for a few headlines. The bigger question was whether or not it belonged under their horror banner or a surreal take on folkloric drama. Depending on who you ask, including director Valdimar Jóhannsson, the answer is somewhere in-between. While it may rank among their minor works, the results speak to the risk taking nature of a studio known for making “weird” the base line and finding something more provocative within it. There isn’t likely to be another A24 film like Lamb, which is the highest of high compliments.
The story begins a bit before the film was even conceived. Co-writer Sjón was a renowned poet who had received acclaim for his work, including a Best Original Song nomination for Dancer in the Dark (2000). His diverse approach to the written work had made him an international success and caught the eye of Jóhannsson. Throughout the previous decade, he had worked on Hollywood productions in various roles including special effects and electrician. His resume included such films as Oblivion (2013), Prometheus (2012), and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016). There was a desire to collaborate, but Jóhannsson wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to do.
Paying tribute to his Icelandic roots, he used history and folklore. Along with archival pictures and documentation, he began to draw pictures. They weren’t the traditional action cards, but instead became what he called a “mood board.” This meant that any plot was cryptic and left to his partner to determine. Among the details featured in the book was the basis for the lamb Ada as well as farmers and a lot of nature imagery. With help from his producers, Jóhannsson got into contact with Sjón. They didn’t want to make a story that felt conventional, meaning that Sjón had all rights to make it as poetic and folkloric as possible.
When it came to the actors, Jóhannsson had contacted Noomi Rapace for a meeting in London. She had been given the script and was impressed with how it stripped back layers to her character. Despite making several European films, Rapace hadn’t starred in many Icelandic films throughout her later career. This role would give her the chance to present a story spoken in Icelandic language as well as learn how to navigate the land. She recalls learning how to help a lamb give birth and finding the experience very calming. Overall the role helped her connect with a maternal instinct that she found very rewarding.
Filming provided a few hurdles along the way. Because of how the script was written, they intended to keep Ada’s use in the film to a minimum. She wouldn’t appear until a third of the way into the story. The planned 200 shots would quickly dwindle as the shooting began to take shape. By the end, there was almost a quarter of the projected total. The special effects used various techniques that included everything from puppetry to child actors. Jóhannsson recalls the fun of trying to hide the puppeteers under the bed while filming early scenes. When it came to the older actors who stood in for the body, the lamb’s head was inserted using either a green skull cap or helmet. Rapace claims that this provided a few conflicts, especially with child actors needing to follow labor laws or becoming easily distracted midway through a scene. There were many instances where filming was delayed because of small snafus. While most of the animals were CGI, there were a few who would sometimes cause delays from abrupt noises.
This wasn’t as much a problem regarding scenery. Jóhannsson chose a location in the hills of Iceland because he believed they were mesmerizing. The open fields allowed for sweeping cinematography and a sky that he described as having magical lighting. This was in large part because at the time of filming, Iceland only had around two hours of darkness daily. He describes sleeping on set so they could capture a soft type of lighting that appeared around midnight.
This helped to give Lamb a special aura, especially given that every scene was intentionally shot in the daytime. Among Jóhannsson’s goals with the film was that he wanted to make a horror film that took place entirely during the daytime. He felt that there was something scarier about seeing everything. Even then, it didn’t necessarily mean that Lamb was horror. Outside of any subtext, there wasn’t much in the way of conventional fears. It had more connection to a fairytale with a cryptic ending that made it at times controversial.
The film had its premiere in July 2021 at Cannes Film Festival under the Un Certain Regard section. Given that the film had received distribution the year before, it was given a lot of attention, leading to a win at the festival. With plenty of international acclaim coming out of the festival, A24 picked it up and quickly took to making it one of their rare Non-English releases. Given that Rapace had some global recognition, it made selling the film off of the stunning lamb-human imagery easier. It also helped that Sjón had a significant year having also written the screenplay for Robert Eggers’ The Northman (2021). Lamb would prove to be worth the gamble. While it doesn’t rank high on A24’s highest grossing titles, it would become the biggest hit for Icelandic film releases in history within the first week thanks to a million dollar earnings.
While the buzz wasn’t significant beyond that, it would become one of the studio’s more acclaimed films of 2021. Lamb would go on to earn an 86% rating on critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. Leslie Jamison of The New York Review of Books lead the praise when noting that, “Jóhannsson asks us to recognize the violence embedded in loving a creature that is not yours to love.” Sharing the sentiment was Javier Ocana or El Pais who suggested, “Disturbing and original... Lamb is a strong allegoric drama, yet it flails in the thriller storyline with the relative intruder who threatens the family's happy life and even more so with its fantasy finale.” Peter Canavese of Celluloid Dreams was one of the few who disagreed by arguing, “A slow-burning Icelandic supernatural horror movie that's beautifully directed and patiently crafted but crash lands at the end.” Overall, it was proof that the studio could deliver no matter where the story came from.
Lamb may not rank as one of the most popular or noteworthy films, but it proved the studio’s knack for delivering the bizarre. Since the film’s release, Jóhannsson’s film output hasn’t been the most prolific. He hasn’t worked on a film that wasn’t his own since 2019. However, he would make an appearance as one of the co-directors of the Travis Scott music film Circus Maximus (2023), which would feature work from other A24 stalwarts like Harmony Korine and Gaspar Noe. All in all, it proved that Jóhannsson’s future looked promising and while there hasn’t been much confirmed on a new project, anticipation remains high for the Icelandic filmmaker.
If nothing else, Lamb ranks as one of the most striking films that the studio has released. It is impossible to not see the imagery and have some strong opinions. Maybe the initial read is more comedic, but those willing to give it a chance will come away surprised by what they see. It’s a perfect curveball for a studio that moved more and more into simpler premises. Even if it doesn’t reinvent the genre, it allows room for things to get abstract. Next in their portfolio was a returning favorite whose latest went even more cinematic and personal. Like everything else from 2021, the results spoke for themselves in establishing A24 as a powerhouse studio where any story wasn’t above consideration and any collaboration was worth expanding on.
Coming Up Next: The Souvenir Part II (2021)
Comments
Post a Comment