[Editorial] The Disrupt Symbology of Lamb (2021)

A24’s folkloric horror productions have been one of the most drawing narrative and cinematic styles within the past decade. It isn’t the exasperated tension between man versus nature that has lured many into experiencing the enticing worlds but more so the rescripting, revisualizing of natural symbolism that is breaking symbolic boundaries, providing more depth, creativity, and meaning to the narratives than necessarily often granted.

Lamb (2021) is not only a film that asserts the man versus nature dynamic but disturbs the relationship of mother versus lamb, both of these entities usually assume nurturing characteristics but here instead, they morph into something more sinister than expected. 

Symbolism around the lamb, throughout ancient texts, has unarguably represented innocence and redemption. Specifically, when looking at Abrahamic religions, the mythos when positioning the lamb in an infant state and stark white fur, has indicated attention towards the animal being a form of purity and enlightenment. When the lamb is paired with human figures or other symbolism, in visual works, lambs signal or allude to a divide, cultivating a distancing from something that holds temptation, ominous, or sinister intentions. The lamb’s physical body and blood is even seen to hold protective factors for the human body, spirit, and home as it was the lamb that was used to replace the sacrificing of Isaac–the lamb’s body worthy enough to replace a human to satisfy a divine spirit’s demand. 

LISTEN TO OUR HORROR PODCAST!

We see this symbolism challenging this symbolism of divine and purity of the lamb into something unsettling and voyeuristic which is clearly seen in the recently released film Lamb (2021). The narrative articulates how seemingly an animal has inserted itself between a grieving couple seeking to overcome their anguish of being childless. Though one might consider the utilization of the lamb to indicate said symbology above, more menacing engagement is expected instead, given that this is classified as a horror film. Continuing an exploration of eco-horror, Lamb contributes to the discussions around climate change concerns and our survivability. Eco-horror films typically unveil the horrors of nature and aspects of nature revolving around us that intend to see revenge. However, it is uncharacteristic that the lamb is utilized as a figure and symbol to represent this broad but important message/theme in a eco-horror film. 

Lamb essentially reconstructs the lamb as an omen, an ominous signal. However, it is not the otherworldly evil that the lamb has come to warn us about, but more so the evil we humans come to produce ourselves. This attempt to disturb an archaic symbology, that the lamb represents purity and innocence, is an attempt to show that our closeness with nature has been severed, that such representation cannot exist because of our mistreatment of it. The lamb will not, as a symbol, be the sacrificial replacement. Therefore, the lamb in the film then becomes a symbol of mockery, for we have lost sight of animals’ strength and power regarding our survival. The seemingly impossibility of the lamb's symbolic disruption is made possible within the film by placing the setting in a distant and remote area of Iceland. 

A couple hosts a farm in Iceland that hosts a herd of lambs and in particular a couple prioritizes a mother lamb because of her disturbed birthing of a hybrid lamb (half human body, half lamb head). Though lambs are also a sight of prosperous hopeful birth, life–as the lamb is often paired with figures like Christ–this lamb serves as an omen. It’s not just the actions around the newborn lamb that serves as an undertone of something ominous brewing but visually how the head itself is centralized to represent horror. Often the camera focuses on its face in an attempt to not only distort its innocent appeal but direct the audience's attention towards its expressionless, dark eyes. The lamb’s eyes are a particular thing to speak about because though the eyes are static and neutral, how the camera adjusts itself to create distortion hails an unsettling interaction with the lamb’s gaze. It is even more alarming because it is the eyes of an animal that is usually deemed passive, unthreatening. Now it is a reflective mirror of judgment as if almost saying, “What have you done?” This judgment and gaze of the lamb shows a betrayal between both parties of the lamb and humans. This is cemented not through the newborn lamb’s eyes but its mother, as one the couple takes the hybrid lamb child into their home it is the mother lamb that cries for her young only to be killed.

LISTEN TO OUR HORROR PODCAST!

Horror cinema is not unknown to use animals to conjure symbology related to the unsettling and the disturbed. Often, as the cousin to the lamb, the goat is used in these disturbing depictions and distortions rather than the lamb. In the film The Witch (2015) the construction of evil symbology is emphasized in the goat’s positioning throughout the narrative. Utilizing similar distortion and cues to the goat’s body and gaze. However, this is to be expected as the goat is often seen as a symbol of evil, associated with demonic, satanic figures. Interesting though, despite the immediately assumed contrasting symbolism between the two, both movie posters indicate sinister themes underlying and embodied throughout the animal’s role and their mythos. 

Which makes Lamb’s positioning even more interesting as it is utilizing a similar association with dark and evil elements, often associated with the goat, and imposing or reconstructing the mythos of the lamb to hold these symbols and meaning instead. However, for this shift to occur there has to be echoes of the lamb’s past symbology to guide the audience into abstracting it, and in turn seeing how the lamb’s innocence is flipped on its head and disrupted. Lamb lures the audience through a series of imagery such as seeing the child lamb in a flower crown, clear white fur, cradled and often bathed, and the characters refer to it as a source of happiness, reinforcing a renewal to their relationship. Then, though, such imagery is unveiled as an illusion and destroyed throughout the plot twist of the child lamb’s ‘father’ killing the human male figure that indicates the lamb (nature) and the symbolism imposed onto it is not for humans to have anymore and the natural, creaturely mythical entities are divorcing themselves from us.

It is a subtle build; the film has to convince the audience that the lamb is no longer a symbol of innocence, purity, and redemption. Ultimately, a technique used in Witch (2015), and then in Lamb, is the transformation of animal bodies into oddities that mimic human qualities. The goat, for instance, to solidify its connection to Satan, speaks to the protagonist in a human voice and transcends from his animal body to a tall, shadowed human-like figure speaking to the young protagonist. For Lamb, it is the similar adult-version hybrid lamb father, except now he is coded more closely to the goat, darker fur and more specifically his eyes and horns cueing a cementation of lack of innocence and empathy towards humans. Ultimately, the cross-over of mythos and symbology of the lamb into something sinister and corrupted results from the loss of respect humans have towards nature. Mother nature demands revenge, and it is eco-horror narratives like Lamb (2021) that create space to allow revenge to take place in possible hopes of shocking audiences into restoring and reflecting upon the relationship humans have with nature. Cinema continues to and should take advantage of symbology around goodness and corrupt it to evoke a message of action towards its audiences.

RELATED ARTICLES

---