Rams: A Sheep-ish Icelandic Tale about Brotherhood
PUBLISHED June 24th, 2017 06:00 am | UPDATED July 25th, 2024 02:40 pm
Having won the ‘Un Certain Regard’ prize at Cannes Film Festival, and awarded the ‘Best Narrative Feature’ at Hampton’s Film Festival, Rams (or Hrútar) is a beautifully shot drama filled with sprawling landscapes, atmospheric wide-angles, and dry humour. No panning was done in the film. Instead, the usage of certain colour tones, a couple of slow zoom-ins, and periodically placed close-ups set the mood and focus. These directional choices in photography helped create the clean, un-choppy edit that didn’t take the attention away from the story line but helped to amplify the effects (given the limited dialogue throughout the movie).
The story follows two salt-and-pepper haired brothers and their community of sheep farmers in a secluded Nordic valley. It’s made known from the start that the relationship between the brothers, Gummi and Kiddi, is far from ideal. What’s more, they are competitor farmers living next to each other with the same sheep stock, a legacy which was passed on by their forefathers.
However, a sheep virus was found in Kiddi’s herd, resulting in a valley-wide mandatory execution order on all cattle, putting the brothers’ 47 year-long feud and already rocky relationship to the test. Will they band together to fend against the veterinarian authorities and save their prized possessions from total extinction, or will they abandon their posts like the other shepherds? We won’t spoil it for you.
Born to parents who grew up in the countryside, Icelandic director and writer Grímur Hákonarson was heavily exposed to the environment for most of his adolescent life, which contributed to his interest in the makings of farm life, stories, characters, and visual language. After graduating from the Film Academy of Performing Arts in 2004, he immediately attracted the attention of international critics with his graduate film, “Slavek The Shit”. It was selected for Cannes Film Festival 2005 and won 12 festival prizes. Following that, he also won multiple awards for one of the most successful short films ever created in Icelandic history, entitled,”Wrestling”.
Beyond the basic aspects of farming, Hákonarson wanted to and clearly highlights the strong connection between farmers and their sheep. Aside from the amount of time they spent with their cattle in the movie, the protagonist had strong emotional ties with his flock, closer than the bond he has with his brother’s sheepdog (which delivers messages). With this intensity of relationships becoming gradually extinct in modern society and people like Gummi and Kiddi slowly dying out, this film in all its eccentricity and peculiarity, is the director’s heart’s cry captured and hopefully, preserved, for the future generations to appreciate and recreate.
Watching the movie, I was in total awe of the chemistry that the actors had with their cast members, aka the rams and sheep. According to Hákonarson, a sheep’s temperaments vary greatly between farms. They were thus required to go farm to farm in search of their perfect flock. It was not until they chanced upon a farm called Halldórsstaðir, that they met their dream team.
Rams, in its entirety, was more than just a story of a regular family feud. Rather, it was a lesson to be learnt. Despite living so far away from civilisation, the same truths still applied to these two brothers who eventually learned that just maybe blood runs thicker than water and the role of a brother’s keeper is almost impossible to avoid. This tale of forgiveness, love, loyalty, and heartbreak is one not to be missed!
P.s- Bring a sweater to spare yourself the cold, especially when the blizzarding scenes come on screen. (You’re welcome.)
Rams opens 29 June, with sneak previews on 24 June at 7:10pm, 25 June at 4:10pm and 26 June at 5:00pm, at The Projector, #05-00 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Road, 199589. For more information and for movie timings, check out their event page here. Otherwise, go straight to the ticketing link here.
