A community of sheep farms is threatened by a devastating disease in RAMS
RAMS (Grímur Hákonarson, 2015)
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Wednesday, February 3
cohenmedia.net
When scrapie, a fatal neurodegenerative disease, is discovered in sheep in a close-knit farming community in rural Iceland, two brothers who have not spoken in forty years are forced to take a hard look at their lives in Grímur Hákonarson’s endearing gem of a film, Rams. Siblings Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi (Theodór Júlíusson) raise sheep on their family farm, but they are locked in a feud that has lasted four decades. Neither man has ever married or had kids, and they essentially ignore each other when not exchanging handwritten messages relayed by Kiddi’s dog. The outbreak of scrapie, which is related to mad cow disease, means that all of the rams and sheep in the area have to be slaughtered and all the facilities thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, threatening the livelihood of numerous farmers. While Kiddi reacts by hitting the bottle, Gummi, ruled by his heart, has a different plan, one that could land him in serious trouble.
Brothers Gummi (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) and Kiddi (Theodór Júlíusson) take a hard look at life and legacy in award-winning Icelandic charmer
Rams is a sweetly told tale with a healthy dose of black comedy and spectacular facial hair. Hákonarson, a documentarian whose previous feature film was 2010’s Summerland, was inspired by his friends’ and family’s actual stories — he himself spent a lot of time on a farm as a child — giving the film an unimpeachable authenticity enhanced by the casting of local, nonprofessional actors and, of course, real sheep, which he selected very carefully. Icelandic film and theater veterans Sigurjónsson (Borgriki, Spaugstofan), who has voiced SpongeBob in the Icelandic version of SpongeBob SquarePants, and Júlíusson are fabulous together as brothers with a common goal — preserving the family legacy — while locked in a brutal personal battle. A scene involving the siblings and a backhoe loader is absolutely brilliant, laugh-out-loud funny but tinged with just the right smidgen of compassion, emblematic of the film as a whole, which uses dark humor to counteract the devastating effects of scrapie and a lament for a disappearing way of life. Rams is beautiful to look at and listen to as well, with stunning shots of the vast Bárðardalur landscape by cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen and a spare score by Atli Örvarsson amid long dialogue-free scenes featuring natural sound and classical music in the background. Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and Iceland’s submission for the Academy Awards, Rams is a lovely little film, a deeply humanistic charmer that will infect your soul — and perhaps have you reexamining any long-running family feuds of your own while stroking your favorite wool sweater.