Family Constellations

Robert Cambrinus invites us to an Alpine villa where a middle-class family meets: father, mother, son and his girlfriend. One night, a traveling teacher visits, an incarnation of Zarathustra from the classic work by Friedrich Nietzsche, who is the Austrian director’s main inspiration. The character proclaims the birth of the New Man and shares his philosophy, upsetting the wealthy family's apparent peace and harmony. The visit slowly exposes internal disputes, hypocritical attitudes and the patriarchal, toxic system of family relationships. Although this story sounds familiar, the director of Family Constellations completely disorients the viewer by replacing actors with mannequins and then breathing life into this world by meticulously staging the interactions and adding an extensive soundtrack imitating the sounds of people and objects. Cambrinus argues that it is not the “willing suspension of disbelief” (Samuel T. Coleridge) that brings about an immersive film experience, as it is widely claimed, but rather the opposite: the full awareness of the artificiality of the storytelling facilitates an uncompromised reception of a film's subject.