It would not be misleading to say that «The Animal» is not about anything in specific, but about different things at the same time, including humanity as an animal species on this planet. That is why it seems more appropriate to keep its original title, instead of calling it "Lamb", which reminds me of Christ, Julie Andrews strayed along mountain peaks and that song about Mary and her little lamb, taking me away from the ideas, meanings and suggestions of the film...
Divided into three chapters, each one tells a part of the story of Ingvar and Maria, a couple dedicated to farming in the mountains of Iceland, who appropriate a newborn lamb from a sheep and experience the consequences that appropriation brings. When, at the end of the first chapter, it is revealed to us that the body of the little lamb is practically all human, do not be confused: we are not entering the realm of horror cinema, but rather the movie is acknowledging the holistic fusion that in the previous minutes we felt (at least I) the authors were insinuating. It is a chapter that emphasizes (consciously or not) communication, perception, intertextuality, compassion, between husband and wife, them and the animals, and the animals themselves.
There are no explanations. Neither spouse seems prevented from procreating and there is a suggestion that there was once a daughter named Ada, the name given to the lamb. There is also no hint that the couple is off the hook. Why am I going to believe the far-fetched plot of «Vertigo» and not this one...? Everything is normal, unquestionable, it is "happiness", as Ingvar affirms. Zero psychological motivations and impertinent reasoning.
It is totally probable that the director Valdimar Jóhannsson and his screenwriter Sjón (a well-known Icelandic writer) had thought of telling us one of those horror stories rooted in the countryside, agriculture and fertility rites, but as their ideas reached the screen, with the magnificence of natural spaces, the looks, gestures and noises between humans and animals (sheep, a cat, a dog and the herd of wild horses that open the film, in the middle of a snowy landscape, on December 24), they take us to another realm of sense and perception, to evoke thoughts alien to a predictable horror story, in which there is a hero who takes a journey, meets villains, monsters, traps and tests of all kinds, and reaches a happy ending.
Not here. The second chapter introduces a third disruptive human character: Petrus, Ingvar's brother. If already in the first chapter, the mother sheep is a key character who incessantly claims her daughter, but when Maria strikes her down, she takes her out of the picture, and Petrus enters. From his initial stupor, Petrus becomes complicit in Ada's case. The third chapter shows the brief deterioration of "happiness" and leads us to a devastating denouement, in which, in addition, Jóhannsson and Sjón introduce us a fifth key character that reaffirms the fusion, of which Ada is not the only representative.
Cinema is varied as there are varied cultures. And we do not tell stories in the same way, nor do we all tell the same stories. In fact, «The Animal» became the highest grossing film of Icelandic cinema, with the biggest audience to date in its country of origin; and in the United States it was the most watched Icelandic film in its first week, even if it premiered at the same time as a James Bond movie. So, there are colors for everyone, and this is a film that, if you follow its leisurely pace and calm exposition, will produce a disturbing sensation but, in the end, a pleasant one.