Italian
A weekend of unraveling: ‘The sparrow in the chimney’ review
The opening scene of “The Sparrow in the Chimney” paints an idyllic picture of country living. A spacious farmhouse kitchen, bathed in mid-afternoon sunlight, opens up to rolling lawns and hazy woods. A regal ginger cat slinks in, and the sounds of birds and insects blur the line between indoors and outdoors. A casserole simmers on the stove, evoking a sense of warmth and comfort. But as the film unfolds, this seemingly perfect setting becomes the backdrop for a weekend of unraveling family dynamics.
The Zürcher twins’ unique storytelling
The Zürcher twins, Ramon and Silvan, have a knack for turning familiar household spaces into something unfamiliar and even alien. Their debut film, “The Strange Little Cat”, observed the everyday routines of an ordinary family from a distance, turning their movements into droll physical comedy. Their second film, “The Girl and the Spider”, found whispers of the uncanny in the back-and-forth of a young woman’s apartment move. “The Sparrow in the Chimney” is the third film in their “animal trilogy,” and it marries their detached observational style with a more fleshed-out narrative, crackling with melodramatic danger and intensity of feeling.
This increased dramatic heft could earn this film broader arthouse exposure, despite the Zürchers’ previous work having a more niche following. The “animal” aspect of the trilogy isn’t incidental. Throughout the film, the natural world encroaches on human life in ways that feel equalizing rather than invasive, as social conventions and restraints are gradually shed in favor of base instincts.
A family on the brink
The first sign of this collapse is a sparrow caught in the fireplace of the rural house where Karen, played by Maren Eggert, grew up and is now raising her own family. The bird is freed by Karen’s lonely pre-adolescent son Leon, but over the next two hours, few characters will make such a lucky escape.
Karen’s consistently stiff, stricken expression is the first clue that all is not well in this apparent idyll. When her younger sister Jule arrives for the weekend with her husband Jurek and daughter Edda, Karen has to be pulled into a hug, as if her body has forgotten how. When Karen’s eldest daughter Christina joins them from college, there’s an anxious void where an embrace should be. Meanwhile, her highschooler daughter Johanna wouldn’t touch her mother if her life depended on it. A self-styled Lolita who yearns to escape the nest, Johanna radiates hostility toward the world in general but saves a special reserve of hatred for Karen. This animosity is beginning to rub off on cherubic Leon, a precocious gourmet who cooks the family’s meals but doesn’t eat them.
The occasion for this family gathering is the birthday of Karen’s husband Markus, though he’s not much in a mood for celebration. He’d rather continue his dalliance with the family’s young dog walker Liv, who lives in a cottage across the way and has a history of mental illness and arson. Thus, all the elements are lined up for a quasi-Chekhovian battle of competing desires and miseries, though not every conflict plays out as expected. Some characters passively watch when you expect them to strike, while others resort to stark acts of violence without obvious provocation.
The ghost of the past
The most aggressive presence in the film may be a phantom one: Karen and Jule’s late mother, remembered differently by the two sisters. She still wields control over a house to which Karen feels oppressively obligated, while Jule was all too happy to wash her hands of it.
Ramon Zürcher’s script balances the excavation of long-buried secrets against a steady stream of present-tense confrontations and revelations. Eggert’s tensely still, hollowed-out performance as a matriarch increasingly inclined to walk away from familial chaos is a stabilizing anchor amid all this narrative turmoil. The remaining ensemble deftly navigates the film’s volatile tonal shifts. There’s more broad, barbed comedy in their interactions and occasional, devastating tenderness when they get each other alone. One exquisite scene features Christina reading her younger brother’s inner life so acutely that he feels, at least for a moment, less alone.
A symphony of tension
“The Sparrow in the Chimney” is a crowded work, sparking with nervous energy, but there’s a mutually enhancing tension between the drama and the refinement of the filmmaking. Characters seem to chafe against the poise and beauty of Alex Hasskerl’s immaculate compositions, and they sometimes strain to be heard over the intricate sound design, which melds human voices with the hum, traffic, and weather of the outdoors. Nearby, a lake and island where Karen’s children once swam have been taken over by intimidating cormorants, possessively guarding a spot they’re no longer willing to share. Perhaps the time has come for this fevered, fractured house to cede itself to the elements.
For more information and to watch the trailer, visit The Sparrow in the Chimney.
This article aims to provide a deep dive into the intricate dynamics of “The Sparrow in the Chimney”, offering cinema enthusiasts a rich, analytical perspective on the film’s themes and execution.
