The Other Lamb (Malgorzata Szumowska, 2019)
Malgorzata Szumowska's The Other Lamb has no shortage of impressive film craft to offer viewers. The celebrated Polish director is obviously a technical master of the craft. It's hard to tell if what hampers the impact of film is in its cold, distant perspective or if there is a decision in the storytelling, related to the themes, which makes sense from a creative and thematic standpoint, but ends up preventing it from evoking the emotional catharsis it seems to be reaching for. The end result is an interesting and puzzling film, but it's not clear viewers are going to be coming away with the questions Szumowska necessarily intends.
The film follows, Selah, a girl born into an all female cult led by a man and her journey to beginning to question his teachings, how this cult works, and ultimately her own sense of reality. There is Shepherd and his "flock" who are divided into "wives" and "daughter" and who wear color coded clothes to signify their status. Wives wear red or a burgundy/purple, and daughters were blue. It's a lifestyle which shows similarities to the Amish, with less overt, strident Christian theology, and something much more of Shepherd's interpretation or creation.
What works in The Other Lamb, works incredibly well. If this isn't one of the most visually beautiful films of 2019, it would make 2019 a historic year in the art of cinematography. Nearly every frame of the film would make for an evocative still photo. Micheal Englehart's cinematography could stand with some of the works of the most celebrated names in the field. For those who revel in the visual aspects of filmmaking, The Other Lamb is worth the time, for this aspect alone. Roughly 90% of the film is set outdoors, and between the use of the sunlight, firelight, shadow and some dream sequences which are visually alluring and thematically disquieting in equal measure, it's easy to give yourself over to the cinematographic style of the film.
It's not just the cinematography which gives the film it's gorgeous visual style, it's also the costumes. As horrifying as they are as a concept, the prairie dresses the women wear are gorgeous on screen. The bright, solid colors among the greens and browns of forrest, and then greens and yellows of grasslands later, are perfect for framing arresting, evocative shots and scenes. Szumowska's ability to put various pieces together for a striking visual presentation is as good as it gets. This includes the design aspects of the simple cabins they inhabit in the woods. They feel real, like they are lived in and functional in keeping with this way of living, and contrasted with the dresses all of the women wear, create interesting and arresting imagery.
The score by composers Rafaël Leloup and Pawel Mykietyn is also outstanding. It's a traditional score, beautifully rendered, with some wonderfully haunting moments. It serves the film exactly in the way it should.
Raffey Cassidy as Selah, the protagonist, is very good. Her performance of Selah's journey from doe eyed, naive believer to the change in her character by the end of the film is another reason The Other Lamb doesn't end up feeling as a wasted 96 minutes. Even was the film itself sometimes seems to have trouble locating Selah on the map of her journey or is taking a perspective too distant to bother, Cassidy's ability to convey the already chaotically intense feelings of youth being amplified by an environment which is wholly oppressive and toxic. This is a quiet film, and she is able to convey so much of her characters journey without dialogue. Hopefully, we'll be seeing more of her in the future.
The supporting role of Sarah is played to perfection by Denise Gough. Sara is one of the "wives" in this cult who has been sentenced to a strange variety of exile, meant to live on the outskirts because she has been deemed a "broken thing" by Shepherd. Gough's performance of Sarah as being weary and worn by her experience, as well as being unable to bring herself to leave because she has been there so long and because of her desire to look after the other women as well as she can, is brilliant. In the relatively few scenes we get with her, she conveys a whole, heartbreaking, and in many ways beautiful character. Sara is a character a certain variety of actor might see as their opportunity to "go big" in order to garner the kind of attention tragic characters like this often can. Gough approaches Sara with a deft mixture of intensity, subtlety and weariness which ends up making Sara feel much less like a character who is simply there to serve dramatic beats in a story. Gough takes what little she has in dialogue and screen time, and creates a very real character.
Overall, these things make The Other Lamb an interesting watch. It doesn't seem to come together fully in the end though, and the conclusion should come with some uneasy mixture of triumph and sorrow, but it ends up feeling closer to cold and empty. On a narrative level, it concludes in a way which points to triumph and sorrow, but it just lacks the emotional impact cinematically. There are some disquieting, uncomfortable moments in the film, and even these don't quite come with the punch a description of them would suggest. Still, it's a beautiful film on a visual level, Raffey Cassidy and Sara Gough give great performances, and the score is quite good. Despite it's lack of emotional impact, it does ask the viewer to wrestle with some questions about gender dynamics and patriarchal beliefs in some interesting ways.
*Note: From here forward would be sufficiently described as spoilers for anyone who wants to go into the film without knowing what the ending will be or some more important character points.
Michiel Huisman is obviously a beautiful man. Hollywood has no shortage of stunningly beautiful people, and Huisman certainly stands among them. He's also a competent actor, at least. He carried off his duties in Karyn Kusama's The Invitation wonderfully. He was a short lived fan favorite on Game of Thrones as well. It's hard to say whether or not one of the central issues in the film comes down to his abilities or decisions made by Szumowska which serve the theme of the film, but lead to the lessening of the films emotional impact.
Outside of a few lines of dialogue delivered by one of the "wives" still in his good graces, and then later in another scene with Denise Gough as Sara, it's never very clear exactly why any of the women who are the "wives" of this group would have ever decided to join this cult and to follow this Shepherd. He's intentionally styled to create recollections of depictions of Jesus, but he has neither the charisma nor the warmth which would given any sense of how this cult even came into existence. Even in the scenes where he's exhibiting some level of warmth to some of the women, it's never something which gives any clue what about him. We see two of the women talk about it, a bit, but we never really see it.
This is one place subjective really comes into play in film. Are there members of the audience to whom Huisman is attractive enough for his appearance to be sufficient explanation? It's possible, but it's also extremely subjective. It's no secret than many people, at some point in their lives, end up making mistakes born out of the influence of someone whose physical appearance is appealing enough to them. We're all susceptible to this to varying degrees or advertising, film and television wouldn't be so obsessed with presenting attractive people to us. If this is what Szumowska was betting on in casting Huisman and/or directing his performance, it's a tricky bet, and doesn't fully pay off if he isn't someone individual film goers respond to as strongly.
In the second act, we see Shepherd having a discussion with a member of law enforcement, and all we really get is that Shepherd is being told they are going to have to leave or this sheriff or police officer is "going to have to do something." It's during their trek toward what Shepherd has told them will be their new home, the cracks really form, and it's especially in this section where the question of why any of the "wives" chose to follow him becomes essentially inescapable. Yes, society oppresses and abuses women, and will hide this behind vagaries, lies and empty justifications, using the existence of nuance and grey areas as a form of systemic gaslighting which would make it completely and utterly understandable for some to turn to the simplicity of something like a cult as an alternative. Following "the rules" in mainstream society doesn't prevent women from experiencing these things, because the goalposts are constantly moving, so someone being seduced by the belief that this cult will be a place where the goalposts don't move, they have a value which has been denied them elsewhere and a reliable support system makes the temptation of a cult completely understandable. At the same time, why this guy? Why this cult? There are religious "sects" and various other cults which will make all of the same promises, so why did any of these women end up here, following this particular man? The question weighs more and more heavily as their journey continues and his behavior becomes more openly, clearly abusive.
Given the films premise and themes, it's understandable for a decision not to lean into giving much evidence to Shepherd being particularly charismatic or giving him some central characteristic which would explain how any of these women came to decide to follow him. It's clear Szumowska is making a film about patriarchal values, how women are acculturated to see themselves, to see men, the value society puts on women, their bodies, their intellects and abilities. It's part of what does make the film interesting. It's inarguable, and makes sense on an intellectual level. Our world, the world existing outside this cult, is only less degrading and oppressive for women if we are willing to start dealing with levels of nuance and shades of grey which are the source of complication. One of the things most attractive about, and which traps people in cults is the level of simplicity they offer. Nuance and shades of grey are replaced with very clear roles, standards and strident enforcement of them. The themes of the film are concerned with women and their experience, so there is a valid argument to say Shepherd doesn't matter and there's no reason to focus on him very much, because it is about the women in film.
The girl whose perspective we're seeing the events of the film through is Selah, and she has been born into the cult, so for her, this isn't a matter of choice. This is all she knows. At the same time, the film feels as cold as Shepherd is. This could be an attempt to give the audience an understanding of what this feels like for the women, but it also ends up robbing the conclusion of its power. Part of what the film is about is derived from the degree to which Selah runs hot emotionally. She's a teenager, so she's experiencing everything with the added sense of urgency most of us have at this age, but what she's experiencing as a life circumstance is highly unusual. Though we can see the urgency and overwhelming power of what Selah is feeling through the film, we ultimately don't feel it because the film is approaching everything from a colder distance.
Come the conclusion, when we find Shepherd has killed the "wives" in order to be able to take the "daughters" as his wives, the scene is muted. Again, it's a horrifying moment intellectually, but it lacks the power a scene like this should have. It doesn't come crashing in on the audience the way it would for the "daughters." It just doesn't have the impact. It's also directly followed by the point the film has obviously been working toward, Selah coming into her own and standing up to Shepherd. We really never get a feeling of catharsis from this moment either, because the film cuts away from this moment to bring us to a police officer finding the bodies of the "mothers" further down the river, and then cuts to Shepherd, having been murdered and strung up in a ritualistic manner, with rams horns having been attached to his head, in reference to the comment Sara made earlier that "There can only be one ram in the flock." Combined with the cold distance of the perspective, this rush through what the film has been building toward serves to deny the audience any catharsis. The final shot of the film, the remaining survivors having returned to the home they'd been run off from by local authorities, suggests Selah will be heading the "flock" now.
The lack of impact of the ending could also be because the first third of the film is almost solely focused on Selah. Shepherd is a distant figure, essentially. He obviously represents a threat to Selah and is framed as such, both narratively and visually, but as the film progresses, Shepherd becomes more a part of the story, and his proximity to Selah grows closer. As we move from the focus of the film being completely on Selah, it loses some of the cumulative power of the urgency of her feelings. We also incorporate Sarah in the second act, who is coming from a very different place, so by the time we reach the finale, we've reached a distance from Selah which wasn't there in the beginning. The ending is recognizably inevitable because of what we learn from Sarah as she interacts with Selah, but again, because of the kind of abusive cypher Shepherd is, it doesn't have the impact it would if there were more of a feeling of betrayal, at least. The inevitability of it from the standpoint of narrative tradition and tropes, combined with the fact that we are shown what is either a dream or daydream Selah is having which foreshadows the daughters killing Shepherd also then removes the element of surprise.
This is an interesting film, and follows in the footsteps of other cult focused films and television, somewhere in line with the brilliant Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene and the more recent Hulu adaptation of The Handmaids Tale. Like both of those, it invokes a tone and atmosphere horror is well known for, but it's better understood as a character drama than a traditional horror film. It's not a waste of ninety-six minutes, by any stretch, even if it doesn't quite pull of it's conclusion. The level of technical acumen on display, combined with its place as another entry in the history of feminist filmmaking make it worth the time alone.