Animals Midterm: Lamb of God / Lady Baa Baa
My classmate Benji and I worked together on our midterm for Animals People and Things in Between. We decided very early on that we wanted to depict the lamb as an both an object of worship and as a creature getting sacrificed. We submitted this draft as our midterm, but plan to reedit the video and remix the sound thanks to the wonderful and helpful critiques we received.
Growing up in Jakarta, Indonesia, I would watch domestic animals, mostly goats, be sacrificed during the festival Eid al-Adha. During our research, we found several instances of animal rights activists who denounce the practice and castigate both Muslims who perform the rite and also farmers who raise the sheep. Species of sheep who are unsuited for the warm climate of Australia and New Zealand often get an infection on their backside and would have their skin and flesh cut without pain relief to prevent it from spreading. The transport of these animals to countries who do practice animal sacrifice, mostly the middle east, causes them significant stress. Once they reach their destination, the animals are often slaughtered en masse and die very slow deaths. While this viewpoint does paint a very vivid and disturbing image of what sheep go through before their ultimate end, I wanted to tell a more objective side of the story.
As an audience member of a ritual sacrifice, I remember seeing great admiration and respect towards the animals who died. I also looked forward them because the entire community would share the meat and we would have amazing bountiful feasts right after.
Growing up Catholic, the thought never occurred to me during communion that we were eating bread and drinking wine representing the body and blood of Jesus Christ, who we refer to as Agnus Dei, the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world. The metaphor of the lamb of god echoes actual rituals of sacrifice and raise the questions: Is it really better to not kill sheep in our churches but eat them for dinner later, without having the courtesy of watching them suffer and die? A core Christian commandment is to not worship false idols. Are we idolizing this creature and deifying it when we pray to it to give us peace? In the process of trying to humanize with the lamb, have we stripped it of its powerful imagery?
We began picturing two videos playing concurrently, one from a subjective point of view of the lamb and the other depicting objectifying it. The video will follow the lamb from being raised in the fields, displaced to a foreign location and then to her slaughter.
Benji and I created the storyboard for our project based on these ideas. He put together the collage below as guidance for my costume and make up design.
I created the character Agnes and wanted to depict her as both a diffident victim of violence and a sexual creature too removed to care. Benji’s set design, which could be interpreted as both a place of worship and a strip club, really set the mood.
I chose to lip synch to a hymn often heard during mass.
- Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
- Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
- Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
which means:
- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
- Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
(via wikipedia)
Benji chose the second song, which I unfortunately do not know the name of.
During editing, significant parts of the shoot (e.g., the transportation scenes) did not feel strong enough to include and in fact slowed down the narrative arc too much. Therefore we decided not to include them. Benji edited all the beautiful long shots in the first half and I butchered some of the second half after a crash course in final cut. I acknowledge and accept responsibility for the choppy feel of that editing.
