"Pig" and "Lamb"

And let's get weirder.

"Pig" is easily the best film that Nicolas Cage has been part of in a while, and it's one that relies in part on the screen persona that Cage has cultivated in recent years: the over-the-top, violent maniac from films like "Mandy" and "Willy's Wonderland."  At the start of "Pig," the film sets up a scenario that recalls "John Wick."  Cage plays a recluse named Rob, who lives alone in remote Oregon, with only his truffle-hunting pig for company.  He ekes out a living finding and selling truffles to an ambitious young dealer named Amir (Alex Wolff).  Then one night, Rob is assaulted and the pig stolen.  This sends Rob back to his old stomping grounds in Portland, where he and Amir search for the pig and Rob's traumatic past is uncovered.

I don't want to get into too many spoilers, because discovering how the narrative of "Pig" unfolds is one of its chief pleasures.  However, I will say that aside from a few brief clashes, "Pig" is not a violent film and I would not describe it as a revenge story.  It's a weirdly affectionate love letter to Portland and its culinary community.  It's a deeply sad character portrait of a man undone by loss.  It's a stealth foodie movie.  And it's also a very good showcase for Nicolas Cage's talents as an actor.  The movie is entirely too odd for him to get any awards attention, but Cage is never anything less than totally committed to this role, and it's wonderful to see.  There's one monologue in particular that is worth the price of admission by itself.

"Pig" is the directorial debut of Michael Sarnoski, who also wrote and edited the film.  I admire his careful balance of tones and tension, and his ability to find images of nocturnal beauty in unexpected places.  He's not afraid of silence, which makes the scenes of Rob in his solitude hit so much harder.  The film is emotional in ways that I wasn't expecting, and discovering the actual path of Rob's journey is so rewarding.  I never thought, going into this movie, that I would be making comparisons to "Paris, Texas" and Atom Egoyan's "Exotica," but it's been a weird film year,  and "Pig" is one of it's better surprises.      

Now, on to "Lamb," which I was expecting to be an odd beast, and it sure didn't disappoint.  This Icelandic feature from Valdimar Johannsson is about a couple, Maria (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason), who are sheep farmers.  One day, one of the sheep gives birth to a strange lamb, which the couple feel compelled to raise and treat as a child.  They name her Ada, and try to ignore the oddity of the situation, and the increasing signs that something is terribly wrong.  The sudden arrival of Ingvar's vagabond brother Pétur (Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson) just adds fuel to the fire.

I wasn't surprised at all to learn that Hungarian director Béla Tarr was one of the film's executive producers.  "Lamb" feels like it occupies the same universe as some of his films, full of sinister unseen forces and horrors that spring forth from the natural world.  The pace is very slow, full of long, static shots of the desolate farm and surrounding country.  There's a cosmic menace at work in the story's mechanics, embodied by a mysterious presence that haunts the protagonists.  However, despite the strong premise and wealth of interesting ideas in the film, I don't feel like "Lamb" quite pays off.

Obviously, "Lamb" is meant to be allegorical, but the allegory is too vague to connect to any real world fears beyond vague discomfort about the exploitation of animals.  We don't learn enough about the characters beyond a few surface facts, and they don't really have personalities aside from reacting to various stimuli and stressors.  The big reveal is pretty good, but it's hard to discern what message we're supposed to take away from the film - and from how the film purposefully sets itself up as a modern day fable, there's clearly meant to be a message.  

The execution is good, and the mood is unsettling, but I don't think that "Lamb" quite achieves what it's meant to.  It'll attract plenty of fans because of the sheer strangeness of its premise, but it doesn't seem quite sure of what it's trying to say, and can only tantalize rather than truly move.     

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