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Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 Locarno coverage. The Sparrow in the Chimney opens in theaters on August 1.

There’s something electrifying about watching a filmmaker break free from well-worn formulas and push themselves into new, uncharted territory. The Sparrow in the Chimney, Ramon Zürcher’s third feature, is the final installment in a trilogy of highly flammable chamber dramas. Anyone familiar with the previous two, 2013’s The Strange Little Cat and 2021’s The Girl and the Spider––the latter written and directed with twin brother Silvan, who’s produced all his sibling’s projects––will likely remember the clash between their austere mise-en-scène and the tempestuous conflicts that coursed through them. Captured in largely static shots among contained locales and timeframes, the films suggest exercises in geometry whose immaculate compositions are always on the verge of collapsing. Pushing against their steely facades are family feuds,...

The isolated countryside home plays host to simmering dramas as Swiss filmmaking duo Ramon and Silvan Zürcher explore interpersonal conflicts in their latest work. The Sparrow in the Chimney brings together an extended clan for a fraught weekend reunion, headed by the brothers as writer-director and producer respectively.

At the center of events is matriarch Karen, portrayed with nuanced intensity by Maren Eggert. She invites her family to the rural property for her husband’s birthday celebrations. But the halls of Karen’s childhood residence contain a turbulent past that resurfaces amongst renewed estrangements. Her younger sister Jule arrives with husband and children in tow, while daughters Johanna and Christina join from differing paths. Each character bears lingering wounds and resentments.

Beneath the orchestrated merriment, an assortment of matters fester. Karen remains haunted by her late mother’s legacy despite the woman’s abusive nature, while the home itself represents shifting familial dynamics over generations.

Maren Eggert, centre, as Karen in The Sparrow In The Chimney. Ramon Zürcher: 'There’s a first Karen and there’s a second Karen, because after the second day, she kind of changes. It's really a little bit like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly' Photo: Zürcher Film With The Sparrow In The Chimney (Der Spatz Im Kamin), Swiss filmmakers Ramon and Silvan Zürcher have completed their “animal trilogy”, which began with The Strange Little Cat in 2013, a tale of passive-aggressive family life, and continued with the slightly more sprawling but not much less intense The Girl And The Spider three years ago. Now, with Ramon back on solo writing/direction duty and his twin producing, they have made The Sparrow In The Chimney, which again takes us into the boiling emotions of a family whose relationships are affected by past trauma.

Ramon Zürcher chats to star Maren Eggert Photo:...

The opening frame of “The Sparrow in the Chimney” evokes a kind of art-directed ideal of country living: In a spacious, rustically textured farmhouse kitchen, mid-afternoon sunlight pours in through open windows so large they double as French doors, looking out onto rolling, summer-kissed lawns and hazy woods beyond. A regal ginger cat slinks in over the sill, as amplified birdsong and insect chatter also seem to blur the indoor-outdoor boundary. A casserole simmers patiently on the stove. Who wouldn’t want to live like this? Pretty much everyone, it turns out, in Ramon and Silvan Zürcher’s elegantly vicious domestic horror movie, which forensically unpicks the compacted resentments, betrayals and traumas underpinning a single weekend family gathering, with a touch as icy as the lighting is consistently, relentlessly warm.

The Zürcher twins — who take a joint “a film by” credit on all their work, though only Ramon is billed here as writer,...

Tense, ominous, and stuffed with psychosexual insinuation almost to the point of absurdity, The Sparrow in the Chimney has much in common thematically with writer-director Ramon Zürcher’s previous feature, The Girl and the Spider, which he co-directed with his twin brother, Silvan Zürcher. His third feature, on which Silvan Zürcher served as first assistant director, is a similarly elliptical chamber piece demonstrating a fascination with the conflicts and desires that simmer beneath mundane or sedate social surfaces, though here an expanded canvas allows him to occasionally loosen up and paint with slightly broader strokes.

The film opens with a few bucolic, sun-dappled images of a rural house and its surrounding countryside, the setting for an extended family gathering arranged by dour, prickly matriarch Karen (Maren Eggert) in honor of her husband Markus’s (Andreas Döhler) birthday. We’re soon introduced to the family of Karen’s more outwardly relaxed,...

After two of the finest films of their respective years, The Strange Little Cat and The Girl and the Spider, Ramon and Silvan Zürcher are back this year to close out their animal trilogy. The Sparrow in the Chimney, which world premieres this Saturday at Locarno Film Festival, features a cast including Maren Eggert, Britta Hammelstein, Luise Heyer, Andreas Döhler, Milian Zerzawy, Lea Zoe Voss, Paula Schindler, Ilja Bultmann, and Luana Greco. Ahead of the premiere, the first trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Karen lives with her husband Markus and their children in her idyllic childhood home. Karen’s sister Jule and her family are visiting for Markus’ birthday. The two women could not be more different. Grim reminders of their deceased mother incite Jule’s rebellion against her domineering sister. As the house gradually fills with life and a sparrow in the chimney seeks a way out to freedom,...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will debut 17 world premieres, including new works by Hong Sang-soo and Wang Bing, as part of its 2024 competition program. This year’s event runs from August 7 – 17.

The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Hong Sang-soo feature is titled Suyoocheon (By The Stream) and stars Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee. The Wang Bing feature is a France, Luxembourg, and Netherlands co-production titled Hard Times. Scroll down to see the full Locarno competition lineup, which also includes new titles from Ben Rivers, Mar Coll, and Christoph Hochhäusler.

The festival today also announced that French acting veterans Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet will receive the event’s honorary Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening ceremony on August 7. Previous recipients of the award include Riz Ahmed and Aaron Taylor Johnson.

Locarno’s separate Piazza Grande lineup features 18 titles, including Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...