IronWatcher’s review published on Letterboxd:
Watched in the cinema (154th visit in 2024)
"Der Spatz im Kamin" is based on the grammar and syntax developed by the twin brothers Ramon and Silvan Zürcher: an exciting interplay of static shots and brief action, declarative speech and the unsaid, on- and off-screen action, serial arrangement and variation. In the new film, however, the effects of abstraction, the impression of the set-down (of sentences, things) and the proximity to the post-dramatic seem a little more polished. The psychogram is not primarily of interest as a form for dynamizing relationships between people, things and space and creating tension. It now actually wants to be filled: with psychologically comprehensible motifs, an explanatory story full of traumas that have an effect on the present and at some point also want to be spelled out.
"Der Spatz im Kamin", directed by Ramon Zürcher and produced by his brother Silvan, is the conclusion of the "Animal Trilogy", of which I know nothing else about. The metaphor of the sparrow in the fireplace is striking, just as everything seems more pointed, more direct, applied with a broader stroke. The wounds, cuts and shards are not only continued verbally in a more aggressive way; they are also physically brutal. In addition to nosebleeds, a scalded hand and bludgeoning marks, there are animal splatters: a flapping chicken without a head, a cat on a skidding program.
Although the carousel of desire continues (especially in a non-heteronormative way), it is now primarily formulated as a mechanism of repulsion. At the center is Karen (Maren Eggert), shunned by her husband Markus (Andreas Döhler), who seeks a warm nest with the pyromaniac neighbor Liv (Luise Heyer), but is also feared and - sometimes openly expressed - hated by her own children. They have to bear the brunt of their own damage. Leon (Ilja Bultmann), the youngest, is the victim of bullying and is also addicted to cooking and vomiting, while teenager Johanna (Lea Zoë Voss), who provokes them with sexual innuendos, is threatened with immobility due to joint stiffness.
The power to act or destroy lies entirely with the women, but they pay a much higher price for it. The men have no say. They sneak around the house, stand around in a daze or resort to escapist fantasies: "I'd like to be a squirrel too."
The permanent stimulus-response carousel spins faster, the pressure has to escape and now finds its way openly through genre cinema all the way to body horror. However, the exit from the surreal, nightmarish passage is difficult to find. But perhaps it is not only the dysfunctional family that is to be driven to extremes and exorcised in this film, but also the design concept, which specializes in framing, limitation and containment. The next films by Ramon and Silvan Zürcher will show this.
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