Cinema Can Do Association–Alienation–Transformation: Das merkwürdige Kätzchen

The 2013 Forum was the international kick-off for DAS MERKWÜRDIGE KÄTZCHEN, Ramon Zürcher’s debut film, the start of a miraculous journey into the realm of contemporary cinephilia. Bursting with life with precise choreography. A mother, a little cat, children and the mother again and again. This film, seemingly dedicated to the everyday life of an extended family in the confines of a traditional Berlin apartment, dances where normally only literature is able to: on the boundary between humor and seriousness (or even tragedy?), measuring mental traces, erratic, clear. The foot that could tread on the cat or even stamp on it stays in the air. Halting, hesitating, a space of possibility. Fragments of human and animal thought, observation, action. What emerged here from a Kafka’s Metamorphosis workshop given by Béla Tarr, another Forum figure of stature, is a small jewel of new modernity, where anima and animal can be positively associated and the alienation of the aesthetic game is liberating.
The screening will be attended by the Zürcher clan, with an Isabella Rossellini in animal form buzzing around too. (bw)