“Darkly humorous, but extraordinarily bleak in a way that can be truly uncomfortable and profoundly disquieting.”

As the well-worn adage tends to go, “misery loves company”, and this has rarely been more relevant than when it comes to those family gatherings that many of us are forced to endure on occasion. What should be pleasant opportunities to connect with loved ones often descend into tense, uncomfortable situations defined by confrontations, whether directly or through small but scathing microaggressions. In his most recent offering The Sparrow in the Chimney (Der Spatz im Kamin), writer-director Ramon Zürcher evokes this sense of tension as he tells the story of a pair of adult siblings that gather with their respective families in their childhood home in the pastoral surroundings of the Swiss countryside to celebrate a birthday. Over the course of what they both anticipate to be quite a challenging weekend due to their major differences in personality and wildly divergent paths in life, they find themselves in combat with one another. They begin to question the nature of reality as they both slowly descend into a state of psychosis, leading to an even more hostile atmosphere than anyone could anticipate. Once again adopting the intentionally rigid style that he uses to find poetry in the most austere formality (already seen in previous work like The Girl and the Spider, co-directed with his brother who here acts solely as a producer), Zürcher crafts a film that oscillates between a gentle domestic melodrama and a harsh psychological dark comedy, unearthing difficult truths about family structure and how it can sometimes be a truly destructive force.  

The Sparrow in the Chimney is certainly not the first instance of Zürcher using the universal image of a family gathering around a table for a meal as the foundation for a film. It is reminiscent of his debut, The Strange Little Cat, which was a simpler examination of similar themes, but with the same sense of curiosity and quiet complexity. The director is clearly fascinated by the human condition, and views interactions between people as an art that he is intent on observing – he has frequently shown himself to be intrigued by the poetry of capturing the smallest moments and reconfiguring them into unsettling, stark portraits of what he essentially views as an egotistical species inclined towards self-destruction. This film makes these perceptions abundantly clear, piecing together a challenging story of a group of people connected solely by familial relations – none of them have anything in common with one another (even the young children are combative with their parents), and they are only gathered to honor some undeclared but universally understood belief that they need to come together for a celebration that rarely, if ever, brings any of them joy. In the process, Zürcher examines these people as they attempt to suppress the unspoken traumas they have experienced – we come to learn some of the circumstances that caused Karen and Jule, the two sisters at the heart of the narrative, to drift apart, and gradually we find how despite their best efforts they cannot avoid conversations around the past.  

Pieced together, these narrative elements form the foundation for a truly exceptional but profoundly disconcerting family drama. However, the accompanying form and tone are just as integral to the development of the film and its many complex themes. The Sparrow in the Chimney is a film in which absolutely every emotion is calculated – at first, it conveys a sense of being extremely austere and clinical, with harsh compositions and a rigid visual style making it clear that this is far from the warm, embracing melodrama we may anticipate. Gradually, the director strips away this sense of coldness, but retains a significant degree of hostility. He uses this as the primary point from which he builds not only the overarching story, but also the underlying themes that are not explicitly discussed but rather contribute to the atmosphere of the film. The harrowing drama is counteracted by a thick layer of bleak humor, the kind that is not used to elicit laughter but rather to situate the story in a more absurd, nightmarish version of reality, one where everything is seemingly off-centre but still blatantly recognizable. The tug-of-war between catastrophe and humor paints a haunting portrait of this family and their unconventional dynamic, underlining the tense and uncomfortable mood that enshrouds a supposedly celebratory weekend. Pleasantries quickly vanish and are replaced by the most devastating of attacks, and it becomes clear that this seemingly congenial dynamic is on the verge of eruption, leading to a climax that grapples with the boundary between reality and a lurid landscape in which nothing is functioning as anticipated. 

Zürcher designs The Sparrow in the Chimney in the form of an intense chamber drama, focused around two central characters and then several operating alongside them, contributing to the growing sense of despair that exists between them. The film centers around two sisters who are engaged in a minor feud that has essentially driven them far enough apart for them to lead entirely separate lives, but not enough to be entirely emancipated from one another. Both feel a sense of duty to their deceased mother, despite clearly harboring feelings of disdain towards her – perhaps it is this shared scorn that has kept them tethered. It allows for some truly fascinating observations into the minds of these characters, who represent very complex individuals that are difficult to define. Maren Eggert and Britta Hammelstein deliver spellbinding performances playing polar opposites, yet being perfectly complementary through these stark differences – the former is Karen, a mostly stoic, quiet patrician who prefers order and structure; whereas the latter is Jule, a free spirit who would like to believe that she has never truly grown up, which she amplifies to frustrate her overly patrician sister. Both performances are incredible, consisting of layers of nuance that the two actors bring to the roles that help prevent them from becoming mere archetypes. The supporting cast, which blends established actors with newcomers, is seamlessly woven into the narrative and brings their respective parts to life, resulting in an ensemble where even the smallest performances are meaningful and make worthwhile contributions to the narrative.

The Sparrow in the Chimney is a film defined by its interminable cruelty, and perhaps takes the hackneyed term “blood is thicker than water” too literally, using both psychological and physical violence as a very effective narrative tool. Yet, Zürcher insists on not only refusing to erase the more callous elements of the film, but magnifying its misanthropy, augmenting the already harsh view of familial trauma with a never-ending stream of viciousness that grows more prominent the longer these characters occupy the same space. Over the course of a couple of days the family begins to reflect on the haunting nature of the past, the one activity they all decided would be avoided. In the process they develop the most severe sense of disdain for one another, allowing their personal conflicts to guide the trajectory of what should have been a far more placid, pleasant weekend. What starts as a seemingly stoic domestic drama rapidly declines into chaos as we find these characters allowing themselves to speak those harsh, devastating truths that many people would never dare verbalize, one of several social and cultural boundaries that Zürcher sets out to shatter with this film. Daring in vision and uncomfortable in execution, The Sparrow in the Chimney is a film in which both people and animals are subjected to the brutality of human nature, which the director clearly views as being inherently harmful, whereby we are inclined to destroy anything that proves to be a challenge to our own intentions. Darkly humorous, but extraordinarily bleak in a way that can be truly uncomfortable and profoundly disquieting, Zürcher’s work here reminds us of the dark and sinister side of human nature, demonstrating how the most animalistic and barbaric intentions are sometimes held by those in the most sophisticated and cultured of situations.