Directed by Ramon Zurcher • Drama • With Jenny Schily, Anjorka Strechel, Mia Kasalo • 2014 • 72 minutes
In the case of THE STRANGE LITTLE CAT, an extended family-dinner gathering becomes an exquisitely layered confection ready for writer-director Ramon Zurcher's razor-sharp slicing. A mother desperately trying not to implode and her youngest daughter who explodes constantly form poles between which sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, cats and cousins weave in and around each other in the tight domestic space of a middle-class Berlin flat.
Fans of Bela Tarr and Franz Kafka will find much to love, as will devotees of The Berlin School, of which this film represents a third-generation evolution. A comedic examination of the everyday that has been captivating audiences since its premiere at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival.
"The domestic environment in the movie, with its hyperactive children and pets, short-circuited cross-talk and roaring kitchen appliances, is at once highly choreographed and buzzing with life; everyday actions and conversations take on a syncopated strangeness and a balletic grace." -Dennis Lim, The New York Times