INTERVIEW: ‘Sparrow in the Chimney’ completes Ramon Zürcher’s trilogy
Photo: The Sparrow in the Chimney, written, directed and edited by Ramon Zürcher, is the final part of his “animal trilogy.” Photo courtesy of Film Movement / Provided with permission.
Director Ramon Zürcher has been on a decade-long journey with his three most recent films. The trio forms what he calls the “animal trilogy,” with each story focusing on a metaphor involving a small creature. His latest is The Sparrow in the Chimney, and it was preceded by The Strange Little Cat and The Girl and the Spider.
In the new film, the characters of Karen and Markus live together with their children in Karen’s childhood home. Everything is going swimmingly, but then Karen’s sister, Jule, stops over for a visit, and the sisters must confront some past traumas and present realities. Maren Eggert, Andreas Döhler and Britta Hammelstein star in the movie.
“There were so many different chapters,” Zürcher said about The Sparrow in the Chimney.” The post-production was quite long because I also edited the film. Then the festival circuit, which started in Aug. 1 [last year], so right now, the main part of the festival circuit of the film is done. And there was a small intermission the last few weeks, so right now it feels kind of nice that there’s a small awakening.”
Zürcher and his team were able to secure a distribution deal in the United States with Film Movement, which has placed The Sparrow in the Chimney at the BAM Rose Cinema in Brooklyn.
“It really feels that now it’s the end of that trilogy, of a process, that those three films are not only siblings concerning the topics, but also they are very, very much formally linked,” he said. “Now it’s kind of a blank page, white paper, and now I can really sit in front of the desktop at a desk and think what I can make, what I can write after having finished those three films.”
Here’s how the trilogy came about. First, Zürcher wrote The Strange Little Cat, the first film. He also edited that movie and brought it around the film festival circuit. During the promotional tour, he was accompanied by his twin brother, Silvan Zürcher, who frequently collaborates with him on projects. At the time, Silvan had recently written The Girl and the Spider, which became movie #2, and then Zürcher kept the writing marathon up by penning The Sparrow in the Chimney.
“While the both of us were writing those two films, we realized that those three films, with The Strange Little Cat, have certain things in common,” the director said. “And so we started to think of those three films together, but I didn’t know while writing The Strange Little Cat, I didn’t know that those two films will follow. It was just during the process where that idea of the trilogy was born.”
In The Sparrow in the Chimney, the main character is Karen, who goes through a tremendous transformation in the narrative. This pivotal role was the first idea that Zürcher had when he put pen to paper. The director called Karen an interesting and ambiguous character.
“Different spectators label her differently,” he said. “Some label her with rather dark and negative aspects. Others can kind of link with her and feel for her behavior within this family, but when I design characters, when I write them, I never label them: ‘This is a good, this is a bad, this is dark and light.’ … I feel a big empathy with her. The darker sides in her behavior or in her character design, I understand it, also the lighter and brighter parts. I’m always interested in ambiguous characters. For me, characters which are very clear, just good or bad, are not so interesting. I like when me as a spectator label a character but then something turns or changes … and somebody becomes three-dimensional.”
Zürcher sees Karen as trapped in her childhood house and thus cannot escape the difficult past that keeps infiltrating her thoughts around ever corner.
“The house is kind of a trap,” Zürcher said. “The Sparrow in the Chimney it’s an image of a prison because that sparrow has the potential to fly, but being in that chimney, it’s kind of the situation of a prison. So you feel the wings, but you can’t use it. You can’t fly, and for me, Karen is a little bit caught in a trap or caught in a prison. She is there maybe because she knew her mother loved that house so much, and so it would be kind of a pity to sell it. And so she really is like caught in that house, in a trap.”
The director added: “For me, it’s kind of a fairy tale of liberation. … It’s difficult to become free because of all those family links.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Sparrow in the Chimney, written, directed and edited by Ramon Zürcher, is now playing in movie theaters. Click here for more information.
