Uncanny Encounters with the Nonhuman Bodies: Lamb (2021)

(Non)Human Bodies In Various Contexts, H. Özden Sözalan,İnci Bilgin Tekin, Editör, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., Berlin, ss.25-34, 2023

In The Open: Man and Animal, while discussing the concept of “theriomorphous”

moving from the “four eschatological animals” in a Hebrew Bible and the “theriocephalous

representation of the Gnostic archons,” Agamben suggests that “the theriomorphous

depiction of the archons refers directly back to the shadowy kinship between animal

macrocosm and human microcosm” (3). Valdimar Jóhannsson’s 2021 film Lamb is

categorized as a supernatural horror/drama film that focuses on a couple’s trauma of losing a

child. However, the lamb that gives the film its name, with its therianthropic representation,

forces the audience to question the eerie (ir)relation between humans and nonhuman animals

which is based upon the feminization and exploitation of nonhuman bodies.