Director: Ramon Zürcher Writer: Ramon Zürcher Country of Origin: Switzerland
For the record, I have not seen this film.
Further to the record, I will not be seeing this film at any point in my life. I’ll explain why shortly.
How It Began
The Sparrow in the Chimney has been described variably as psychological drama, psychological horror, and as some combination of the two. IMDb labels it simply as ‘Drama’. As does Letterboxd.
The IMDB description is more than a wee bit vague:
‘The stark personality differences between sisters Karen and Jule become apparent as their families come together for a birthday party.’
Umm…okay.
Nonetheless, I was intrigued by the film’s title and its poster. The poster features a House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) bursting free from a woman’s shirt. A few other critters, including a Monarch butterfly, a hedgehog, and a chicken, are shown as well. The woman on the poster appears decidedly disgruntled. Here it is:
Official poster/one-sheet for The Sparrow in the Chimney (2024)
Interesting. I think.
I gave the trailer a watch. It gives off that distinct arthouse vibe that so many European films tend to do. Given the range of descriptions that have been applied, that’s not at all surprising. It’s also by no means a bad thing. I’ve watched and enjoyed many such films throughout my life. Some have been masterpieces. Many have been pretty mediocre. And a good number have been just plain terrible. I’m perfectly fine with arthouse, generally speaking.
But. And this a big BUT.
As revealed in the trailer, the film features – literally – a House Sparrow caught inside a chimney.
My interest had already begun to wane.
Now, before you go, ‘Meh, it’s just a House Sparrow’, keep in mind that this film is a Swiss production. And it’s set in Switzerland. As any good birder knows, House Sparrows are native to Europe. The film’s setting is precisely where they belong.
Unlike here in North America, where they’re an introduced species and can be problematic for certain of our cavity-nesting native birds. But that’s not exactly why I’m here doing what I’m doing. Resources abound that can fill you in on all the House Sparrow lore that you need to know. The CornellLab’s All About Birds page will do.
No, I’m here to tell you why, as a work of art and/or entertainment, The Sparrow in the Chimney is problematic.
To a bird (and animal) lover like myself, the idea of watching a film wherein a bird is trapped inside a chimney for a potentially extended period of time is…well…not my idea of a good time. For me, this sort of thing is very triggering for a number of reasons I will not detail here. Moreso, it’s simply an unpleasant thing to watch or have described in any medium whatsoever. You know, unless you’re a psychopath.
However…
Where It Went
Rather than immediately rushing to some dramatic conclusions about the content of the film, I figured I would check out an official review. No, not some idiotic user review on IMDb or Letterboxd, but an actual review written for a major publication.
Before I get to that, though, I want to at least briefly cover what the film is about. Based entirely on what I could gather from having watched the trailer.
Very much in a nutshell…
The story centers around a family get-together at a country house. There appears to be an abundance of tension between all of the various characters due to any number of unresolved conflicts and past traumas. In essence, it’s a dark family drama and quasi-horror film involving some seemingly unpleasant characters who probably shouldn’t be hanging out together in the first place.
(Sounds a bit like my family. Eeek!)
From what I was later able to piece together from a couple of online sources, the sparrow in the chimney is meant to symbolize the mental states (i.e. feeling trapped; wanting to escape) of one or more of the main characters. That totally tracks with what the trailer showed.
But yeah, after watching that trailer, I was very much riding the fence on this film. A proper review was definitely in order. As it happened, the very first review I found – by Matt Zoller Seitz at rogerebert.com – turned out to be the only one I needed to read.
Zoller Seitz was not a fan of The Sparrow in the Chimney. There were a number of reasons why he panned it, the majority of which I won’t go into here (by all means, check out his review). But there is one criticism he levels at the film that I want to mention because it’s really significant.
For me, it was the proverbial nail in the coffin. The reason why I’ll never waste two hours of my life watching this…well…dreck, to be perfectly honest.
How It Ended
As Zoller Seitz spells out in his review, “There’s a lot of animal cruelty in the movie…”. I know a few of the specifics, but it’s not worth my time to go into them. I’ll just say this:
In any way, shape, or form, I have zero tolerance for that sort of nonsense. Regardless of context. Regardless of whether it’s real or simulated (which appears to be the case here). The use of animal cruelty as a plot or story device, or as a way to define a character in some manner, is often extremely troubling. But the depiction of said cruelty specifically for the purpose of art or entertainment: that’s not for me.
And hopefully it’s not for you either.
So that’s the last thing I’ll ever say about The Sparrow in the Chimney.
As a sort-of palette cleanser, how about a pic of a fledgling House Sparrow? Cute but deadly. I’m not even kidding.
Director: Steven Spielberg Writer: Steven Spielberg (story); David Koepp (screenplay) Country of Origin: U.S.A.
Heading Out on the Trail
‘If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?’
So goes the tagline for Steven Spielberg’s newest film, Disclosure Day, set to open in theatres on June 12, 2026. It’s reasonably catchy, isn’t it? ‘If you found out we weren’t alone’ alludes to what we can safely assume is the central subject of the film: aliens. Maybe it’s a bit too on the nose, but I think that’s perfectly fine here given that we are talking about a big-budget Hollywood film.
The middle bits of the tagline go a long way towards explaining the film’s title. ‘Disclosure Day’ establishes that we – humankind, that is – are about to discover that we are not, in fact, alone in the universe. That’s cool.
The last section, ‘would that frighten you?’, suggests that such a disclosure might be a tad…challenging…for many people. Given the human capacity for ego and self-absorption, along with a general disdain for anything coded as ‘other’, I’m inclined to think that such knowledge would be extremely frightening for most of humankind.
Yeah, I’m liking that tagline more and more all the time.
However.
This blog slash newsletter is called ‘Pop Culture Birding’. It’s probably safe to infer that birds and birding will be discussed here in some way, shape, or form. So what exactly does Disclosure Day have to do with birds? Or birding? Aside from the fact that it’s a Steven Spielberg film that features a great cast and deals with aliens in some capacity, what is the big bird-related or bird-adjacent deal with this film?
Well let me tell you. In two words: Northern and Cardinal. Also known as Cardinalis cardinalis. You know, one of these handsome dudes:
(Yeah, that’s one of my photos, not some AI-generated slop.)
Now, if you happen to have already watched the trailer for the film, or if you’ve seen the poster, I guess you’ll already know why, as a bird nut, I’m making a fuss over this film. However, if you’re a bit out of the cinema loop, and you know little or nothing about Disclosure Day, here’s a poster for you to take a gander at:
Disclosure Day poster 1.
Bam! See what I’m saying? That’s a Northern Cardinal superimposed over Emily Blunt’s not-quite-human visage. To a birder and cinephile like myself, this poster is super cool.
I’ve already entirely forgotten where and when I first caught sight of this poster. Maybe on Instagram. Or maybe it popped up on IMDB’s main page when I went there searching for some trivial bit of info on another film. Which is a distinct possibility. In all likelihood I was simply too caught up in the excitement of seeing a Northern Cardinal splashed so prominently on the poster to remember the how and when of it all.
Naturally, I immediately headed over to YouTube to see if any trailers for the film had dropped. Lo and behold, there it was: a nice little two-minute teaser trailer. Theoretically rubbing my hands together in obsessive anticipation, I hit play. Then – ugghh – waited as some inane ad began to play. As soon as the ‘Skip Ad’ button appeared, we were off to the races.
I was of course super excited to find out precisely what the film was about. At least to the extent that any good teaser trailer is able to give out such info. But I was also very keen on keeping my eyes open for any shots included in the trailer that might explain why a Northern Cardinal had been placed front and center on two of the posters.
Ha-ha, yeah, there are actually two posters that feature the Northern Cardinal. Here’s the second one:
Disclosure Day poster 2.
Cool, right?
So how about that trailer? Ok, so a CG-animated Cardinal appears in two shots. In the first, it flies into a living room and lands on a small table in front of two of the main characters (played by Emily Blunt and Wyatt Russell). In the second, it lands on the antlers of a CG-animated deer (featured on a third poster, he-he) as the deer approaches a little girl in her bedroom.
A scene from the trailer featuring a Northern Cardinal perched on a deer’s antler.
There are two additional shots that I would also call significant. Where Cardinals are concerned, that is. These quick shots reveal a Northern Cardinal-themed mobile hanging in that same little girl’s bedroom. Ah, the plot thickens.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Here’s the third poster:
Disclosure Day poster 3.
So what is Disclosure Day all about? And what makes a Northern Cardinal (not to mention the deer and a few other critters) such a seemingly important character in the film? These seem to me like good and worthy questions to ask. Alas! To my and surely everyone’s dismay, the film is – as previously mentioned – months away from official release. This means that there is very little to go on when attempting to come up with answers to these mysteries. We have the trailer. We have the posters. And we have the tagline. That’s it. That’s literally all there is. Realistically, all I can do at the moment is come up with some wild guesses what’s going on in the film.
All of which begs another important question that may have already occurred to some: why even bother at this point in the game? Why not simply wait until after I’ve seen the film? You know, when I can actually justify the absurd number of hours I’m spending coming up with reasons why everyone should be excited about this film.
Now that’s a truly good question. Luckily for everyone, it’s one I think I can answer. Yay, finally!
Taking a Little Side Trail
Honestly…
…I’m just here to have a bit of fun. To spread a miniscule degree of joy in these…umm…lacklustre times, to borrow a phrase from a fairly obscure song that I love. Existence is a bit rough right now. For all or maybe even most of us. So why not try to lighten the world’s collective load by sharing my thoughts, my passions, and my joy with anyone who might like to listen.
I’m deeply in love with birds and birding. They bring so many good vibes into my life. I mean, nature in general does, but I have a ridiculous kind of obsession with our feathered companions. I mean, I literally dream about birds sometimes.
Same goes for movies. I’ve been a movie nut for a very, very long time. As in well over forty years. I’ve watched tens of thousands of movies throughout my life. The ritual of sitting down to watch a movie, to become immersed in a particular film’s world, and to carry that experience around with me: these are important to me in ways I can’t fully articulate. I’m sure there’s some strange evolutionary reason behind it, but I couldn’t tell you what it is. Not that it even matters.
My point here is that these two things – nature and art, birds and movies, however you want to pair them – are wellsprings of wonder, love, and joy for me on an extremely personal level. They are the things that inspire me and keep me going day after day, even as the entire world pivots in ways that are often less than hopeful.
For quite some time now I’ve been thinking to myself: why not combine these two things that I love into something I can share with others? Sure, there is a kind of fun in letting the experiences simply run wild inside my own head. But like any caged bird, they ultimately want out. They want the freedom to roam and explore. To fully and truly live.
And so here I am. And here we are.
I did of course realize from the get-go that looking at and considering birds and birding in movies – and in popular culture as a whole – is a fairly niche topic. That’s kind of the whole point, though. As far as I can tell, no one has ever done this. At least not to the degree that I plan on doing it. Having realized this gap existed, it seemed only logical to jump on my own little bandwagon and go zooming through pop culture’s birding trails and hotspots.
As may be obvious, the preceding has been a bit of an introduction to the whys and wherefores of this whole endeavour. My plan is to go into much more detail in future posts about the many twists and turns that have led me here. I will do my absolute best to make sure the personal posts are fun and informative reads. There will of course be plenty of bird, movie, and general pop culture content sprinkled throughout the personal stuff.
One other little thing, while the topic is still timely and I’ve not yet managed to bore everyone to tears.
Besides birds and cinema, there are two other wildly important passions in my life. Aside from my life partner, that is, lol! One of them is photography. I’ll be getting into this a fair bit in later posts. The focus will primarily be on my own photographic journey, but I might touch on photography as a form of both art and popular culture on some occasions as well. Birds will frequently be mentioned, so be prepared. My other huge source of joy and wonder would be my two feline companions, Willow and Gala. I might mention them from time to time. We’ll see.
Right now, though, back to what we all assumed was the topic of this post: Disclosure Day.
On the Trail Again
Anyone who knows anything about Steven Spielberg or about popular cinema in general knows that Disclosure Day marks a return. Aliens are of course one of the subjects that made Spielberg a household name across much of the planet. From Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) to E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982) to War of the Worlds (2005), Spielberg knows and loves his aliens. That Disclosure Day continues with this subject in some form is pretty obvious from the teaser trailer and the posters. Less obvious is the specific nature of the aliens in the world that Disclosure Day presents to us.
Based on the tagline and the general gist of the trailer, in the film’s fictional world, humans are – unsurprisingly – unaware that aliens exist. Several shots in the trailer suggest that the aliens are attempting to communicate with humans via certain animals, including the Northern Cardinal and the deer. There is also a shot in which we get to see a raccoon and (I think) a fox behaving in ways that are more than a little unnatural. I can’t wait to find out what that’s all about!
Then there is the one human animal – the Emily Blunt character – who also appears to be a communications conduit for the aliens. The precise nature of what the aliens are attempting to communicate: that’s anyone’s guess right now.
Having watched the trailer a few times, there is one thing that I’m especially curious about. Why have the filmmakers chosen the various animals we see in the teaser trailer. The deer, the raccoon, the fox, and the Northern Cardinal: why these? I keep wondering if maybe it’s somehow related to how intertwined the lives of these particular animals have become with our own lives in our modern world. Luckily, we should be getting a new full-length trailer very soon, so maybe that will help shed a bit of light on these probing questions. Fingers crossed until then, right?
As I mentioned already, this is all in good fun. It’s definitely not something to think too deeply about. At least not until we’ve seen the film. After that, all bets are off. Having said that, and purely from a birder’s perspective, I do think it’s a semi-big deal that a Northern Cardinal has been selected by the makers of Disclosure Day to convey certain narrative ideas. And to – presumably – help move the story along. I’m beyond intrigued by what the trailer and posters suggest, but perhaps even more so, I’m unabashedly overjoyed to see a bird as iconic as the Northern Cardinal take on such a possibly significant role in a major Hollywood film.
Another Little Side Trail
We all know that Hollywood isn’t what it used to be. In various ways, both good and bad. Specifically, though, I’m referring to the sort of movies that Tinseltown has been churning out for the past couple of decades. Wholeheartedly consumed by the monster that is late-stage capitalism, the big studios rarely invest in standalone or purely original stories. You know, the kind that bring with them any sort of financial risk. If it isn’t a sequel, a remake, a reboot, or coming from some other entertainment medium with a built-in audience tagging along: it probably isn’t getting financed by a major studio.
Even a film such as Disclosure Day, despite it being an original concept, is a wholly recycled package. Spielberg tackling aliens for the fourth time is by no means the pinnacle of originality. But for better or for worse, it’s probably one of the primary reasons the film was greenlit in the first place.
Oh well, what are we going to do, not watch it? That’s just absurd.
Despite my obvious cynicism regarding Hollywood, I remain very excited about Disclosure Day. It may be a recycled package, but that doesn’t preclude it from bringing fresh and exciting ideas to the screen and to our lives. Besides, when I think about how many brilliant films Spielberg has made – not to mention the number of excellent films written and/or directed by wunderkind screenwriter David Koepp – how could I not be stoked to see this. That release date of June 12 is very much on my cinema radar.
By the way, here’s the teaser trailer:
I will most likely revisit this film on here somewhere down the road. After I’ve actually seen it, of course, and I can discuss it in more meaningful ways. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for any oddball Northern Cardinals who appear to be attempting some sort of coded communication with you and your friends.
P.S.
Every so often I get up from my desk to look out the window that overlooks my backyard. I have an assortment of bird feeders placed at strategic locations, which I keep well-stocked with various kinds of bird seed. Despite the intolerable winter weather that is currently battering my neck of southern Ontario (-7° C, a -18° C windchill, winds gusting to 72 km/h, and snow) my backyard is full of birds.
There are lots and lots of Dark-eyed Juncos, a few Black-capped Chickadees, plenty of House Sparrows, an American Tree Sparrow, a White-breasted Nuthatch, Mourning Doves, and yes, Northern Cardinals. Birds are some of the toughest and most impressive creatures our planet has ever given birth to. We can all thank evolution by natural selection for the humbling gift of winter birds.
