Animalada (2001)

Lots of people love animals, but one man takes his fondness for a sheep beyond the boundaries of what's acceptable at your neighborhood petting zoo in this darkly absurd comedy. Alberto (Carlos Roffe) is a wealthy man whose nearly three-decade marriage to Natalie (Cristina Banegas) has run out of gas. While puttering around his summer estate, Alberto spies a sheep being led through the meadow by his caretaker, Miranda (Pepe Monje). Alberto is immediately infatuated with the sheep, and asks Miranda to lock her up in the barn near the house. Naming the ewe "Fanny," Alberto soon falls in love with the animal -- and begins expressing his affections physically. As it turns out, Miranda also has cast a lustful eye on the sheep, but Alberto genuinely loves Fanny, and even imagines that the sheep is talking to him, though it still sounds like baa-ing to everyone else. Slipping past eccentricity into madness, Alberto decides no one can have Fanny but him -- not Miranda, and certainly not that ram grazing nearby -- and he hires a preacher to marry them after he divorces Natalie. Alberto discovers not everyone is accepting of his new "bride," and Alberto responds to those who cannot celebrate their love with violence and murder. Animalada was shown in competition at the 2001 Buenos Aires Independent Cinema Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi