magda_butra 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.

Anthony Iessi A Monty Python movie, without any of the irony or the humor. Reading the subtitles in a British accent actually enhances the experience. I'm proud to say, I did just that. The colors of the film are washed out and ugly, and so are all of the characters. Love it or hate it, it's purely original.

Martin Bradley The third part of what writer/director Roy Andersson calls a trilogy about 'being a human being', "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence" is even more like a sketch-show than its predecessor "You the Living". The various scenes are tenuously linked without amounting to what you might call a plot and like Andersson's earlier work marks him out both as a classic surrealist as well as a humorist of the first rank. Yes, "A Pigeon Sat on a Bench Reflecting on Existence" is genuinely very funny though you may need a very dry, (and dark), sense of humor to get its jokes, and speaking of jokes, Andersson's claim that it's about being a human being may be one of them since the human beings in this movie may not be quite like anyone you know.

Turfseer 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.