Watch A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence For Free

hyped garbage

Expected more

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Pigeon is made in the same style as You, the Living. Again we have plenty of short scenes, shot from one angle, with no cuts. Filled with absurdity, no actual plot, various way of interpretation. Too deep or too obvious, Andersson bounces between two extremes. The characters and the scenes are overdrawn. Everything happens in one, slow pace. Silence is boring and dulling the vigilance. In comparison, You, the Living seemed more... lively.If Andersson shows Swedish society, I felt the criticism towards it in one scene, mocking it in the second and a direct reference to it in the third. The critique is present in a scene with elderly elegant Swedes observing the cruelty, done by non-Sweden. For me this is a reflection on Swedish neutrality in the 20th century. Mocking the Swedish society appears in the last scene. Bunch of people is waiting at the bus stop and one of the men starts to ask if today it's really Wednesday, cause for him it felt like Thursday. The group assures him that yes indeed, it's Wednesday. Additionally, the other man explains, that we all have to agree that it's Wednesday, otherwise there's gonna be chaos. Of course the first man did not imply that we wished it's another day of the week or that he is still gonna pretend it's not Wednesday. It did not hinder the other man to make sure that everything is clear - even if you feel like something else, you have to agree with everyone else in order to keep peace and organization. It might be exaggerated reference to Jantelagen (no one is special, no one should act like they are superior to one another). It is established that it's Wednesday, everyone has to adjust.And then it's my favourite scene with Charles XII. He, as a Swedish king, should be a clear indicator that Andersson tells something about Sweden. Okay, we have a king with absolute power, everyone serves him even if he has the most ridiculous demands. But... this could be any monarch, right? So for me by using him, the director was more about praising the modernization, understood both as moving from kingdoms to democracy and as equalization of the societies. Choosing Charles XII could simply just give Andersson space to mock king's homosexual needs, which was directly shown. Despite different possible interpretations, I admire Andersson for the technical management of this scene. It's the longest one in the movie and the most complicated. So many elements could go wrong and in the end there is this final version with no cut. Standing ovation.What if we look at Pigeon not as a portrait of Swedish life, but a life itself? All the feelings are phlegmatic. Even love, even anger, even laughter. Is the life so unfair or do we make it this way ourselves? I think that Swedish societ" is just a frame. Andersson is using some obvious cliches and stereotypes (which still can be true!) about his motherland in order to explain something more, something common to all human beings. Or I'm just trying to find deeper meaning which really isn't there. If so, this is just another proof of this director's strength - his movies can be seen through so many shades of interpretation.

"We want to help people have a good time" state the central duo in A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. The two are travelling salesmen Jonathan and Sam, our protagonists of sorts, if protagonists indeed exist in Roy Anderson's dreary and deeply melancholic series of vignettes. Their products: a laughing bag, a grotesque mask and vampire teeth. Their tragic career is fitting for a film that is best described as a Kierkegaardian tragedy with a wry smile. The world they live in is as stagnant and lifeless as the titular stuffed pigeon, the colour scheme a mix of gloomy greens and off whites. The sets are meticulously staged, with the camera always stagnant, a passive observer of the human condition. Most of the film is set in contemporary Sweden, a land of immense freedom, and due to that freedom, tremendous anxiety. Throughout the film we are shown characters attempting to connect to each other, trying to seek some comfort in the companionship of others, with little to no success. Rarely in cinema do we get such a singular depiction of human existence and while the absurdly black comedy might not work for most, for Existentialists with a funny bone this is not a film to miss.

If you are ready for something truly different and utterly bizarre, then check out Roy Andersson's "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence." It consists of numerous vignettes commenting on the absurdity of human existence, shot in one take by a static camera, often capturing the machinations of drab characters uttering non-sequiturs in diorama-like sets. Andersson's characters remind one of the bizarre subjects Diana Arbus used to photograph in her masterful "carnival-like freak show" portraits. Andersson sets the tone at the outset by introducing three set pieces meditating on death. In the first piece, a man keels over from a heart attack while opening a bottle of wine in his living room, as his wife nonchalantly cooks dinner. Here perhaps Andersson sees death as random and banal.In the second piece, siblings attempt to extract a handbag containing valuables from their mother who's dying in a hospital bed; the old woman shrieks and clutches the bag even tighter as one of the sons pulls on the bag. Death here is associated with the rapaciousness of human beings. In the third piece, crew members on a ferryboat attend to a man who has just passed way and ask any of the gaping passengers whether they'd be interested in finishing off the man's last meal that he had just purchased from the cashier. One of the passengers agrees to take the dead man's beer but there are no takers for the main part of the meal. Andersson is not averse to showing there is a comic side to death too!The main characters in the narrative (if you can call them that) are traveling novelty toy salesmen Jonathan and Sam, akin to Vladimir and Estragon from Beckett's "Waiting for Godot." They brand themselves as sellers of "entertainment"—the only problem is their customers rip them off because they have no money to pay for the items they're trying to sell (no one seems to be able to take responsibility for their own personal finances including Jonathan and Sam, who also claim poverty when their own creditors come calling). Sam continually berates Jonathan who is the more self-reflective of the two—Jonathan in fact bemoans the fact that people get ahead in society by taking advantage of others. A man in the flophouse where they live is continually berating the two for keeping him up—Sam makes excuses for his partner by dubbing him a bit too "philosophical." The items the two salesmen are selling are symbolic of the malaise of the wider world they inhabit—that's why there appear to be no takers: the vampire teeth perhaps represent religion or superstition; the "laugh bag" is either the ennui-infused populace being laughed at or the "canned" laughter they continually emit; and lastly the one-toothed "monster" mask may evoke the true "monstrous" face of humanity today or possibly those who are "different" and are unable to fit into a world largely defined by its conformity.Perhaps the most remarkable two scenes in the film is the appearance of King Charles XII riding into a modern day café on his horse accompanied by his fusiliers who immediately evict all the women and flog an unsuspecting patron for not showing enough respect for the king. The king requests a glass of water and then tells the barman that he should join the fight against their enemies, the Russians, and also asking the barman if he would like to join him in his "tent." Later, the King's bedraggled army along with an exhausted and injured monarch reappear at the café, after they've been roundly defeated at the Battle of Poltava. In the café, the King must endure the humiliation of having to wait getting into the bathroom as someone is already occupying it. Andersson is perhaps taking a dig at the legacy of militarism in his country as well as the former patriarchal nature of the society he's criticizing.Another significant scene involves an old codger at a restaurant who's been patronizing the place for 60 years. Suddenly inter-titles inform us that we're back in 1943 and we see the man in his younger years in the same restaurant as patrons sing different lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and a waitress exchanges kisses for drinks. Fast forward back to the present, as a waitress helps the old man leave. Is the old man now leaving with a feeling of satisfaction of having lived a good life? It's hard to know but Andersson reminds us that no one escapes the ravages of time.The most unsettling scene involves a group of British soldiers escorting a group of black slaves into a giant rotisserie drum and then setting a fire underneath presumably burning the occupants to death. On the drum is marked the name of a famous Swedish company, "Boliden," responsible for an environmental disaster in Chile beginning in the early 80s due to toxic metallic residues. As the drum rotates, a group of upper crust Swedes from the early twentieth century passively watch the horrific spectacle as it unfolds. Swedish society's participation in the excesses of colonialism as well the later environmental disasters of the 20th century is suggested in Andersson's jarring images.Not everything is negative in Andersson's strange universe. There are poignant scenes as well (a woman affectionately embraces her child in a park, for example). Ultimately, however, the film is too slow and repetitious to be compelling. There is some fun in figuring what everything means but Andersson's societal critiques and meditation on the futility of existence is ultimately a superficial exercise.

This is not the usual type of films where you have a linear plot with characters driving the story to a conclusion. This is something else. This is the perfect example of "absurd, minimalistic cinema." And if you are one of those who locates a well-furnished meaning in every frame of a film, this one is going to terribly disappoint you.The film is a collection of frames where character move minimally to flash a point or two. The points that they make, however, are too inconspicuous. Every other viewer will have a different take on them, and that in itself is the best thing about the film, which can either bore the hell out of you or make you laugh like a drain.Most of the time, people in these frames are stationary, just introspecting or thinking about their existence. And that is where the title of the film comes in. Different short stories throw dim light into the ways of life that we as homo sapiens lead. Many of these stories are pretty vague to understand. But if it starts you thinking, then that there is a success.The subtlety is maddening. The camera work, whatever it has, is fabulous. Humor is brilliant and so is its timing, if you can detect them. At the end, you will find yourself asking too many questions about your own life and why you do what you do. What is the meaning of life: is it to be happy? Generous? Obedient? Law-abiding? Rebellious? What? The repetition will get you.BOTTOM LINE: A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is a little piece of absurdist art that is not for everyone. Its range is so myriad, your wondering capacity will be inundated with thoughts.VERDICT: 5 stars out of 10. Watch it once!Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES