Małgorzata Szumowska's first English-language work, ‘The Other Lamb’, is both a horror film and a feminist tale. However, this combination produces an ingratiating and disappointingly derivative film.
Szumowska has always had good timing and an ability to find a subject that would spark debate and draw the audience's attention. She has never been afraid of controversy; however, her almost journalistic approach sometimes made her films feel like op-eds. In Stranger, Szumowska tackled the everlasting Polish disputes about abortion. Elles was about the sensational, almost tabloid topic of prostitution and sexual sponsoring, and both Body and Mug had direct references to widely discussed, staggering events – including the murder of the famous painter Zdzisław Beksiński and the first face transplant to be performed in Poland.
The Other Lamb is proof yet again that Szumowska has great intuition – she knows what sells well at film festivals. Making her first English-speaking film, she decided on a genre that has recently been quite trendy – an art-house horror, which mixes B-class convention with commentary on social issues.
In the story about a girl (Raffey Cassidy) belonging to a mysterious sect, we can find traces of Robert Eggers’ excellent The VVitch: A New-England Folktale, Bone Tomahawk by S. Craig Zahler and Get Out by Jordan Peele – pictures that have redefined the genre in recent years, adding a social dimension to horror films. However, The Other Lamb lacks their energy and intellectual novelty.
Szumowska uses the attractive costume of a feminist horror to cover up a plot that is simplistic and anecdotal. In The Other Lamb, we anticipate terror but never really experience it.
It is Michał Englert’s cinematography that is responsible for most of the awe the film engenders. Englert photographed the exteriors in a way that elicits their majestic beauty, unreality and dread. The stony hills of Ireland and forests full of crooked trees build an air of confinement and danger. However, the effective exteriors and gloomy cinematography are not enough to truly scare the viewers.
What Szumowska fails to do is construct an engaging story that gives the viewers a possibility to sympathise with the young protagonist. Depicting of a juvenile girl entering adulthood and learning how to tell truth from falsehood, the director is so focused on the message behind her film that she forgets about captivating storytelling. As a result, The Other Lamb sinks into boredom and simplification. When Szumowska employs classic means known from horror films (such as jump-cuts or whip pans), her film seems almost like self-parody.
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Still from 'The Other Lamb' by Małgorzata Szumowska, 2019, photo: Patrick Redmond/IFC Films
The director is more interested in the feminist superstructure of her film than its base – the genre. The path to self-awareness that the protagonist is on is crucial. The main character, played by the astonishing Raffey Cassidy, is yet another woman dominated by men. She is a member of a sect led by the charismatic Shepherd (Michiel Huisman) – a handsome, bearded man who is somewhat similar to Jesus. He is the only male in the ‘herd’, which is made up of a group of wives and daughters waiting for their sexual initiation.
Szumowska does not add a new wrinkle to the story of breaking free from masculine domination. Moreover, she depicts maturing, rebellion and the need for female solidarity in a dead serious tone. Her film lacks humour – and it was humour that made horror films such as the aforementioned Get Out so successful. The Other Lamb evokes Picnic at Hanging Rock and has some references to The Handmaid's Tale. However, in comparison to them, Szumowska's film is flat and banal.
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Still from 'The Other Lamb' by Małgorzata Szumowska, 2019, photo: Patrick Redmond/IFC Films
All in all, it is a paradox that The Other Lamb, a feminist story created by a director who is really up to date, turns out to be derivative and not progressive, especially in comparison with films like Fat Girl by Catherine Breillat (that was released almost 20 years earlier, in 2001) or the early works of Lisa Cholodenko. Not to mention the depictions of women's oppression we get to watch on TV today – including the aforementioned The Handmaid's Tale.
The film, based on a script by Catherine S. McMullen, was supposed to open international markets to the Polish director. After a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival it indeed received numerous favourable reviews. However, it seems like Szumowska lost something important – the emotional temperature of her cinema – by going overseas. The Other Lamb is a belated feminist manifesto and an arty piece that only pretends to be a full-blooded horror film.
- The Other Lamb, directed by Małgorzata Szumowska, written by Catherine S. McMullen, cinematography by Michał Englert. Starring: Raffey Cassidy, Michiel Huisman. US premiere: May 29th, 2020
Originally written in Polish by Bartosz Staszczyszyn, translated by Natalia Sajewicz