Perhaps a film for men who are able to take up the reverse edge of their reflection and shuffle them on their own.
The young Italian composer Daniel Belardinelli worked enthusiastically on the sound. In one of the thematic melodies you can hear how the wind from the cemetery gives an extra ringing in David’s head, and the rays of the bright sun break and uselessly pour through the foliage.
A man in the heyday of physical cynicism does not know what to do with himself. Actually, he has a relationship with a beautiful young colleague, Lynn. And that's not the reaction he wants from a woman. Every time Lynn 'cleverly lowers her head', it is noticeable that she loses contact with him.
It looks like Lynn is trying to control David with her anticipation. He clings to philosophical hooks in his answers. A woman with the offended eyes of a large intelligent animal. He says indistinctly, “I just need space, and I don’t want to steal you from the world.” Lynn is also ahead of David in the workplace.
The only thing Lynn can't control is coping with his physiological need with her luxurious white flesh.
The rest of the time, he lies to her. David does this not out of evil, but as in any hopeless relationship.
The impression that he was hurt by Lynn's phrase that she knew his wife had left him. David reacted outwardly in passing, but where he was broken, now contactless failure.
Tommy gave me minimal information about himself. He chose the name as many others, but was emotionally honest.
David decided to invite the girl on a trip, most likely, in their dialogue, he was horrified by her answer: “Yes, I probably will die here.” "Here" is in those same buildings, although Tommy lives in a decent clean apartment, but every day is similar to the previous one. Her mother is on the couch, a type of Dana Borisova, but tired at work, a friend of her mother, next to her on the couch, a young but demagogue.
Tommy/Emily’s inner, tear-squeezing sense of “wrongness” that everything is wrong in front of her eyes, that she doesn’t understand why she’s here – the moment when she’s doomed to gaze at a large bridge with passing trucks.
And everything changes again. The evening makes a beautiful already fresh bucolic landscape. Nature is attentive to sensitive natures, and especially for such people “steals” the visible flaws of everything against its background.
There is no threat, no enemies. Everything turned out to be true: horses in tall grass, and his house, no matter how patchy the house is outside. But inside it is wooden, good, at least somehow tidy, light, inhabited. A man named Lamb stopped nervously twitching, two almost related people cooked natural food, family at the table.
Lynn with the grace of a broiler ham - heavily "drunk" in the surface of transcendent harmony.
Although, for two souls, with their shared time taken beforehand, everyone else is around like the same unbroken windows.
A perfect example of American extragenre filmmaking. In the category of "dogma95", when filmed about human communication, the characters break through in non-fake feelings, and the shooting is on nature without additional props and filter processing. Also in the frames there is music that really sounds in the scenes. Cinematography. What a space. At the same time, the viewer is perspective on one diagonal with the main characters.
Thank you for translating the film from English. Tatiana Masakovskaya, and the excellent work of the actors behind-the-scenes voiceover studio OMSKBIRD records (together with the article Paradox): Pavel Yaroshchik (voice of David), Olga Fedorova (voice of Tommy), Alexei Gneushev (male characters of the film). Playing the hero with his voice, getting to know him, understanding him, giving him intonation frequency, voicing and motivating his actions is a lot and it is a good, interesting work. Thank you all.
Movies built entirely on games of feeling are almost always not masterpieces, but they don’t suck either. This movie is about anxiety; you think the director is a pervert, and only in the end you realize that you are no better. However, this statement is controversial, because the feeling of anxiety does not leave not only male viewers, but also female viewers. And that's fair. We all understand that in reality, men like David with crystal-clear motives barely exist. This makes everything on the screen look scary.
“What would happen if all men were fathers and children were not afraid of strangers?” Around the 20th minute of the film, it becomes clear why the film has such a title. The girl is like a lamb walking into the hands of a wolf. She looks at David with a perplexing look throughout the film, detachedly reacts to his moralizing and reads “I want to go home” in her eyes all the time, but something nevertheless makes her go with him to her destination to see decrepit horses.
It's hard to understand the motivations of heroes. It is not clear whether the girl is dysfunctional parents or they just like to lie on the couch. Can routine and boredom make a child leave home? According to the director, maybe. Can family turmoil and depression make a grown man go on an adventure like kidnapping a child? I guess so. David is so imbued with the idea of “showing the girl the world” that he does not notice that she does not really need it, because her own world is not so bad (at least in the film does not clearly explain what it is bad).
The film begins with an obsessive "we're not about pedophilia," where David talks to the girl as a father, and continues "maybe about pedophilia," where he starts touching neo-paternal themes like "did you sleep with boys?", touching her, etc. Only at the end of the film, when the girl goes from apathetic state to emotional, it becomes clear why everything was started - to show that the girl can fall in love with a stranger, and a stranger can not use this for his base purposes, but play with a toy at his father and take the toy back home. But the toy is alive and has the property of attaching. Anyway, it's a nice story. But it's just a fairy tale.
From the very beginning, I would like to understand and move away from the idea of the film, which is expected to occur in almost every second, if not every first, comment or review of the film: what, they say, is natural pedophilia, burn, crucify, destroy the creators. There is a good argument against this kind of remark – you don’t have to project your complexes and fears onto everything you watch, or “whoever hurts, he talks about it,” if translated into street language. With this approach, any frame where an adult and a child are half a meter away from each other can be considered as something that is all ambiguous and gives reason for it. Yes, this comes out of the paradigms known to us of the psychology of interaction, behavior of a child and an adult, but this is not quite real life, this is a movie where you can blur or aggravate, invent and display reliably, push several meanings at once. And these things can happen simultaneously.
For me personally, the picture became a simple illustration of how two lonely people met, here is adult loneliness before us, it is aware of itself, it can analyze on the basis of years lived, reflect, defend itself against the aggression of the environment, which is eager to communicate with you, and there is a completely childish loneliness, which does not know anything about itself yet, it is unprotected and in general - lamb. In the end, we realize that they are similar, that this is something that sits within each of us, has no age, has no boundaries. That you can eventually find the tools to somehow cope with the longing, uselessness, meaninglessness of yourself and put up / come to terms with the given, or you may not find.
Gary teaches Emily: look at the world, listen to the simple world - the running wind, the sound of a rustling river, get to know your country better where you live, wonder, do not shut yourself out at least from this and, perhaps, this will help overcome the grayness and falsity of the world around you (which, as we understand, Gary could not do). To be honest, I didn’t think that a child at 11 years old could operate with the same conceptual apparatus as a 47-year-old man, this is the counterpoint of history, this is the false strangeness of the story – “well, this grown-up man explains to this little nerd about the meaning of life,” but the things spoken like a postcard to the future, as a warning almost to himself. Towards the end, we see that Gary himself was once in Emily’s place.
As you know, Ross Patridge changed the plot of the book Bonnie Nazam, which served as the reason for the film, so I do not understand those who somehow connect them, these are two completely autonomous statements. If it is so terrible and scandalous, then I am very sorry that such a book gave the basis for, in general, a good film.
Of course, there is nothing in the film that can be called innovative, stunning, must-see. This is a silent film about the silence inside. And even the silence is different for everyone, so I understand those to whom the movie seemed to be nothing, so it did not resonate. There will be other films.
The first thing that comes to mind not only after the end of the film, but also while watching it, is the question “what is this film about and who is this strange man?” I have the impression that the main character is a pedophile and a pervert who plays with a child girl, who is kind of playfully abducted from home. The film is teetering on the edge: on the one hand, the close friendship between a 40-year-old man and a girl is depicted, and on the other hand, the dark and bad thoughts of this man are hidden and at some point it seems that they will step over this line. There are many hints of a very bad connection between these characters.
"The Lamb" (Lamb, 2015) is an adaptation of the book by the author Bonnie Nadzam about which we do not know much. It is known that the novella is called "Losers". The film was directed by Ross Patridge (Ross Partridge) who also adapted the book into the script and starred in the lead role. Ross Patridge tried his best – he changed the original story very much, leaving only a piece of it at the beginning, and then already came up with what was in his mind. I didn’t read the novel, but it certainly didn’t depict a 47-year-old man’s love for an 11-year-old girl. And then there was the feeling that he had no good feelings for her.
Result. Very strange film with ambiguous understanding of events. This is definitely a strong drama, but I did not like the story terribly, as it blows pedophilia, and every frame, every emotion of the protagonist and the heroine herself gives out lust for the girl in it. Every time he finds a reason to touch her, hug her, look at her. It's a terrible movie and I don't recommend watching it.
I can’t understand why these movies are allowed. It is a very dangerous thing and it is not right that events revolve around a grown man and a little girl who confess their love to each other. I definitely made the right conclusions and such scenes and events helped me in this: a lot shows the girl in the bathroom; a scene when the hero cries and the girl hugs him while being in the same towel; when the hero makes love to his girlfriend he looks only at the girl!!! This is very bad and disgusting...
I will immediately say that the film requires a certain contemplative mood, life, sensual experience and is not suitable for entertainment.
When I started watching this film, I found myself thinking that the behavior of the protagonist is very strange and goes beyond the ordinary actions of people. At the same time, I had a twofold feeling: on the one hand, I couldn’t believe that a 47-year-old man was selflessly taking an 11-year-old stranger on a journey, on the other, I hoped that it was. Why he did this is only known at the end of the film. That feeling in the chest, when you become attached to a person and there comes a moment when you will not see him again leaves in the soul experience, experience. It will be valuable for a lifetime and will allow you to be more human. For Emmyli, this is an invaluable experience, and for any person.
I really liked this movie for three things. The first is that the director, he is the main character, was able to show simple and unpretentious love. The second reason is a very wide spectrum for the freedom of the viewer, his interpretation of what is happening. And the third reason, of course, is that the director didn't ruin the ending, which I was so afraid of.
This film cannot be called a failure. It does not cause boredom, does not replete with Hollywood templates, it is difficult to reproach actors for woodenness.
But even to the category of successful, interesting and worthwhile to be viewed, it is also impossible to include “Lamb”.
A man meets a child suffering from a lack of parental attention and peer recognition, and kidnaps him, taking him away from the city. On the way, they sleep together in hotels, and then settle in an empty house at the end of the world. But they are only friends, nothing more.
The innocence of the heroes’ relationship is constantly and persistently emphasized.
At the same time, the creators did not attempt to explain the motives of the 47-year-old friend of the 11-year-old girl. So conclusions about what is happening on the screen, the viewer has to make only himself. How to find the answer to the question – what is this film about? What message does it contain?
There are other options here.
A(optimistic). There's really no idea. Due to a fatal gap in the script, it just turned out to be another film. If it weren’t for these holes, everything would immediately fall into place.
B. Nothing is more innocent and natural than the secret friendship of a grown man and a child. If you still think otherwise, watch Lamb, drop prejudice and boldly send your children to be friends with strangers.
B. It's about love.It doesn't know any barriers or limitations. What could be more beautiful than pure, platonic love? Love of a grown man and a girl! If you still think otherwise, watch Lamb, discard prejudice - it is rude and intolerant.
G. It's about temptation.A woman at any age is a seductress! Here, watch the movie, pay attention to the behavior of the child, and do not blame adult men for the fact that someone did not restrain themselves!
And if variant A has the right to exist, like any mistake, then all the others are personally abhorrent to me.
Lamb leaves a very unpleasant feeling. Even more so than Lolita. There is at least no cunning and cautious slippery attempts to bring pathology closer to normal.
P.S. The description of the film, unfortunately, does not correspond to its plot.
P.P.S. "Meets a young girl." Heroine 11 years old: this is a child of primary school age, not even a teenager.
In 2011, the independent publishing house Other Press gave birth to Bonnie Nazam’s book Lamb, which tells the story of a middle-aged man who suffers the death of his father and separation from his wife, which happened at the same time. He tries to hide from emptiness and hopelessness in a friendship with a little girl who has not yet known the pains and disappointments of life and can be saved. The book did not become a hit and a guest on the counter of every bookstore, but attracted the attention of some readers with its scandalousness. The relationship of the forty-seven-year-old hero and his eleven-year-old girlfriend, described in something like a psychological thriller, inevitably caused a comparison of the work of Bonnie Nazam with Lolita Nabokov. Someone found Lamb blatantly ugly, someone beautifully exciting. In the list of the latter was the actor and director Ross Patridge, who was so impressed with the book that he decided to thoroughly investigate it. Then inevitably the idea of film adaptation was born. The result was the film Lamb, in which Patridge acts as director, screenwriter and lead actor.
The film begins quite innocently. We meet a man who has lost touch with almost everyone in his life. And there are only two ways - to remain alone or find a person who is in the same hopeless loneliness. So when our hero meets a little girl abandoned by her family and begins to show her exclusively fatherly feelings, we do not notice anything suspicious. After all, it’s a movie, a place where soulmates and suffering come together regardless of conventions like age, nationality or gender. Here, an aging man and a young girl can sit on the grass and imagine that they are somewhere else. Unknown and beautiful. The beginning of the picture is what we love modern American independent cinema - road trips, simple but heartfelt dialogue, a sad but not depressing atmosphere and beautiful landscapes. Ordinary people with unusual tragedies try to escape, try to fight, and their struggle is familiar to us.
However, soon the picture becomes more and more restless, gradually soaking in the atmosphere of the thriller, but never becoming one. You spend all your time waiting for something terrible and chilling. An innocent story begins to strip off the skin of a sheep and turn into a wolf. And in principle, you have to understand that everything you've realized before was a lie and this movie is about a terrible pathology, but nothing like that happens. The tension in which you are kept for most of the film never finds détente. Understanding the motivation and feelings of the protagonist is lost. The screen is flooded with tragedy after tragedy and there are so many of them that you can easily confuse the real with the fictional. You can no longer explain why these two are here, what drives them and what they are trying to say. There will be words about love - fake, inferior, but durable. And maybe that's enough for someone. However, for those who like to really understand the characters, Lamb will seem like a job incapable of meeting the most basic and basic needs of the viewer.