QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM LOCARNO

There’s dysfunction, there’s depravity, and then there’s the family in The Sparrow in the Chimney, a group who engage in adultery, animal abuse and occasional mutilation. Leon (Ilja Bultmann) is a cuisine-obsessed son that is regularly beaten up by local thugs; Markus’ (Andreas Dohler) is the patriarch, a man fervently cheating on his wife with the lodger staying in the cabin; and the rake thin Karen (Maren Eggert), who is desperately trying to reconcile her decision to live in the house where her father committed suicide. They are visited by Karen’s sibling Jule (Britta Hammelstein) who is visibly irritated by the presence of her mother’s possessions, and although her buoyant attitude cheers up teenager Johanna (Lea Zoë Voss), it serves to create more chaos in a house driven by noise and negative energy.

The Sparrow in the Chimney is a tragicomedy of sorts, not least because some of the lines are very funny indeed. Johanna, headstrong and outgoing, bags many of the funniest lines, but Leon – a child who places crockery in microwaves and pets in the washing machine – is also noteworthy. But for every amusing anecdote comes a darker alternative, particularly from Karen, a mother of intense loneliness and quaint despair. She stands outside the hut where her partner is fellated by another, walking by the gardens her parents once tended. In a rare moment of confession, Karen admits that she can feel the ghost of her matriarch, displacing her influence on the family.

Seemingly the only one who can see Karen for the person she aspires to be is eldest daughter Christina (Paula Schindler), a girl who has left the house for another life. Christina knows deep in her heart of hearts that she belongs here in this house, but admits to Johanna that she can only qualify her memories of her childhood from far away. Compared to the more rational Christina, Johanna seems wild, blatantly flirting with men her mother has taken a fancy to.

Incredibly original, and directed with great pathos, The Sparrow in the Chimney is bolstered by inventive use of effects; a dream sequence set on an island infested by cormorants accentuates the terror the movie flirts with. Eggert is magnificent as a woman shattered by her father’s demise and her husband’s infidelity, leading to a number of testy retorts. Johanna, who admits that she “doesn’t know how to love” her mother, asks why her parents refuse to divorce; “To make your life hell,” is Karen’s answer. Eggert’s performance is matched for menace by Luise Heyer as Liv: the former biologist who may well be stepmother to Karen’s children in the future. Chillingly, Liv implies that Karen’s personality is that of a firefly. “Fireflies are pure poison,” Liv mutters, returning to the house that has welcomed and taunted her in equal measure.

Like the dynasty in The Lion In Winter (Anthony Harvey, 1968), this group of rag-tags are haunted by their ancestry, everyone falling hostage to the ghosts that float inside their heads. Karen’s distress is worsened by Jule’s presence, a woman who feels as much resentment to her late mother as Johanna and Leon clearly hold towards theirs. Jule is very different to Karen, even entrusting Liv with her baby while the “adults” go out for a meal. In both generations, there are daughters who stand by the intentions of their parents (Karen and Christina) and those who rail against them (Jule and Johanna). But what’s apparent is that though this family may struggle with love, there is certainly an affection felt between them as a collective. The Sparrow in the Chimney is a work of tremendous beauty and fragility.

The Sparrow in the Chimney just premiered in the Official Competition of the 77th Locarno Film Festival.