The Strange Little Cat

Ramon Zürcher's 2013 German film takes place in a Berlin flat on an autumn Saturday. Karin and Simon are visiting their parents, other relatives come by through the day, and dinner is prepared. Nothing else happens. The film's interest is not in the conversations but in objects. A spinning bottle, a falling button, a running food processor and the cat moving through the flat set the rhythm of the scenes. The camera barely moves and people enter and leave the frame. Everyday talk intersects, overlaps and goes unfinished. The tension in the family relationships is never stated; it is understood from the arrangement of sound and object. The film was made as the director's school work and runs under eighty minutes. Who it's for: those who like formal experiment and minimal narrative. Who it's not for: viewers looking for plot; the film deliberately tells no story.