A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

classified 12A S
Film

Please note: This was screened in May 2015

Director
Roy Andersson
Cast
Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom, Viktor Gyllenberg
Details
100 mins, Subtitled, 2014, Sweden/Germany/Norway/France

Swedish master Roy Andersson returns with this absurdist, surreal and shocking pitch-black comedy which muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man, the final part of his brilliant trilogy (after Songs from the Second Floor and You, the Living). This magical mystery tour of suffering, indulgence and melancholy told in his trademark visual style (the Telegraph suggested imagining Jacques Tati stuck in Ingmar Bergman’s spare room and you’re in the right area) unspools over the course of 37 comic vignettes that introduce us to a series of downtrodden characters. One constant is a pair of travelling salesmen who are spectacularly unsuccessful in their attempts to inject a little fun into peoples’ lives by selling vampire fangs and rubber masks, but there’s also appearances from lost sailors, flamenco dancers and King Charles XII.

It’s a defiantly weird vision of humanity from one of cinema’s most singular voices – truly, no one else could have made this. Trust us, it’s like nothing else you have ever seen before, and more than deserves its win at Venice, where it beat another feathery-themed film, Birdman, to the top prize. The Telegraph again went so far as to say the Golden Lion was awarded to not just the best film at Venice, but this year’s best film outright. Is it amongst the year’s best? See it and decide for yourself…

Get in the mood for Pigeon... with this collection of short films from our archives starring more of our feathered friends.


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