By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Roy Andersson
Starring: Holger Andersson | Lotti Tōmros | Nils Westblom | Viktor Gyllenberg
Original language title: En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron
Country: france, germany, norway, sweden
Year: 2015
Running time: 101
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2369047/combined
Chris says: “Roy Andersson makes movies that could come from no other director. I suppose most film buffs can detect plentiful influences on his style: the more overtly comic works of Luis Bunuel and David Lynch, naturally fellow Swede Ingmar Bergman, maybe even the spare surrealism of early Jim Jarmusch. Still, nothing else quite matches up to Andersson’s gloriously odd mélange of static camera shots, excessive long-takes, absurdist black humor, and depiction of pasty-faced middle-aged schlubs in his hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden.
“When you’re this distinctive an auteur, however, it can both be a blessing (you’re praised for your originality and identifiableness) and a curse (you end up making the same film over and over again). A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE is the third chapter in a trilogy that began with the great SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000), which was followed by the slightly less great YOU, THE LIVING (2007). It gives me little pleasure to say the law of diminishing returns also applies to the third film; however, if you loved the first two, chances are you’ll like a lot about this one (newbies, on the other hand, should approach the trilogy chronologically).
“Like the previous two films, this one is a series of connected set pieces, sort of like Richard Linklater’s SLACKER if each scene was at least twice as long and if more characters reappeared throughout. It begins with three deaths (the most hilarious of which revolves around an unclaimed glass of beer) and nearly concludes on two segments about lack of empathy among ‘homo sapiens’ that contain some of the most disturbing imagery I’ve ever seen. In between, we have such dazzling, elaborate sequences as King Charles XII leading modern-day Sweden into battle against Russia and a brief but fabulous flashback to 1943 where one of the film’s contemporary locations becomes the setting for an impromptu musical number. I was less taken with the two pathetic novelty salesmen who show up repeatedly—the initial presentation of their wares (vampire teeth, a grotesque face mask) was funny, the fourth or fifth time, not so much. Fortunately Jonathan, the more hapless of the two, gets the film’s best line: ‘We just want people to have fun!’, spoken in a trembling voice on the verge of tears.
“When Andersson calls these films a ‘trilogy about being a human being’, he’s actually fairly sincere. Despite the outlandish situations his characters endure, in the end they’re just ordinary people with rarely anything profound to say, but they all insist on expressing themselves to the point where one has no choice but to listen and take them seriously. Now that Andersson’s trilogy is complete, I can’t imagine what he’ll do next—unless it’s more of the same. 4 cats
“(A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE screened at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival).”