SCENE AND HERD

A woolly ending mars otherwise intriguing New Zealand flick Lamb

There comes a point in every film where one of three things has happened: The movie has explained itself; the movie has made it clear it's going to explain itself; the movie has run out of time and clearly won't be explaining itself. Most popular entertainment falls into Category 1. So this James Bond fellow is an MI6 spy? Got it!

Lamb, from Icelandic director Valdimar Jóhannsson, lands very firmly in Category 3. Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gu∂nason play Maria and Ingvar, a married couple running a sheep farm in a remote mountainous region of the country. One day, one of their flock births an aberration, as evidenced by the wideeyed response from the farmers. They've never seen anything like this.

But they're stolid, nurturing types, and they swaddle the newborn, bring it inside their home, name it Ada and do their best to raise it. For the longest time we only see it from the neck up. It looks sheepish enough, a regular lamb. It's not.

Jóhannsson takes his sweet time revealing any details about the creature, all the while letting the film's sense of dread swell. It helps that the couple, though clearly content, say little, while the camera roams around at animal eye level, sometimes pausing to take in the doleful glare of a sheep. They're the perfect creature for horror films — familiar to most of us but not on a daily basis, large enough to be dangerous, smart enough to be unpredictable, and with those glassy, hard-to-read eyes.

The film goes far on its icy, moody tone, and the concluding scene is something of a shocker. The whole edifice has the feeling of a lost fairy tale, something dreamed up a thousand years ago by one of the island's early bards. And maybe it's asking too much for a Rod Serling type to step in and wrap up the tale.

So if you're fine with a little ambiguity as the closing credits roll, Lamb might be the dish you're seeking.