A talented taxidermist and her brother share a farmhouse and a dream in the intimate and poetic in the documentary Revir – Everything You Hold Dear directed by Peter Hammer, having its North American Premiere on May 1, at the 2023 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
Their house is a menagerie of still-life animals, falcons, ducks, wolves, a bear, some arranged in life-size dioramas depicting their natural environment.
It’s day-to-day life for Susie and Sune, as depicted in Revir – Everything You Hold Dear, Peter Hammer’s remarkably intimate portrait of these alternately supportive and bickering siblings, living together, estranged from their parents.
As cinematic as real-life gets, Revir intimately follows Susie and Sune as their frail dreams become a struggle, and records the unexpected resurfacing of their past in the form of a mother determined to re-enter their lives.
The past is particularly unpleasant for Susie, a sometime sufferer of depression and other mental health issues. She assesses herself as “awkward and weird,” and says her “trust in humans was broken” in school.
Revir is a portrait of longing, and the complications of family. It also has a subtext about our complex relationship with animals. Susie and Sune have a pet cat and two dogs. Most of her customers buy her work as pieces of art, but she refuses to mount a dead pet cat, because, “It’s difficult to work with something so personal.”
“Revir’s museum diorama film set is an homage to the cultural heritage of taxidermy, says Director Peter Hammer. “It’s a cinematic device for displaying and elevating the film’s finds and invoking rituals of remembrance and conservation.”
“Composer Lars Greve was on set where he composed and performed part of the score in real-time,” enthused Hammer, “causing literal and visible vibrations in the decoration surrounding Susie and Sune — and helped transform this abstract and conceptual purpose to a very emotional space within the film.”
“I’m attracted to characters in a sort of exile, who voluntarily or not find themselves gazing at our shared society at an odd angle,” continues Hammer. “Like other very close relationships, the siblinghood of Susie and Sune is complicated and fraught with co-dependency, expectations, blame, and guilt. Luckily there’s also lots of laughter. But for Revir, their exile creates a deeply engaging discussion between togetherness and loneliness.”
Watch the trailer for Revir – Everything You Hold Dear.