A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

Dir: Roy Andersson

2014

*****

Once more, for the third and final time, Roy Andersson's masterpiece, the third in his Living Trilogy, was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards and for the third and final time it was not nominated. That tells you everything you need to know about the Oscars I'm afraid. However, after the first two films in the series (Songs from the Second Floor 2000 and You, the Living 2007) had gathered a global fan-base, more people took notice of A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence and it gained the anticipation it deserved. It premiered at the 2014 Venice International Film Festival and it was awarded the Golden Lion for best film. That tells you everything you need to know about the Venice International Film Festival. The title is a reference to the 1565 painting The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting depicts a rural winter scene and some birds sitting on a branch. Andersson said that he imagined that the birds were watching the people below and were wondering what they were doing and that the title of the film was just a different way of saying 'what we are actually doing'. He also said that he was inspired by Vittorio De Sica's 1948 film Bicycle Thieves but I can't see the connection personally. The film is once again formed of a series of self-contained tableaux but for a change many of them are connected by two characters; Jonathan and Sam, a couple of traveling salesmen who specialize in novelty joke-shop items. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is also different from the other two films in the trilogy in that time doesn't seem to be a factor and past events often play alongside current ones. It is a dark comedy like the two previous films but I would argue it was less dark and less humorous but that is not to say I liked it any less, it is by far the better film visually. The two previous films weren't always easy to decipher and both felt that they were personal to Andersson, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is no different but it makes a couple of bolder statements and is clearly the most personal film from the director yet. I wonder if the last fourteen years struggling to make the films had a big influence but Andersson is clearly the pigeon of the title. One of the film's more poignant moments involves a reference to a dark place in Swedish history. We see a line of weak, dishevelled (possibly starving) people enter a huge copper cylinder that is finally heated and spun once everyone is inside. It is a reference to the Swedish mining and smelting company who sold thousands of tonnes of smelting residue to Chile in the 1980s, only to face a lawsuit claiming hundreds of people, particularly children who played on the waste site, had been killed from poisoning. It is a stark contrast to the rest of the film that were human and personal, but all fictional. The last film of the Living Trilogy might be a reflection that life hasn't progressed much in fourteen years, as it feels particularly bitter in places. It's a sad note to finish on but an important one, and perhaps the best of the three. The three films should really be seen as one but either way, together or individually, they're masterpieces.

You, The Living
Dir: Roy Andersson
2007
*****
Roy Andersson's follow up to his 2000 masterpiece Songs from the Second Floor is an altogether more celebratory piece that is ever so slightly less dark and a little bit more fun. Much like the first film, You, the Living's theme is based on literature, in this instance an old Norse proverb 'Man is man's delight' from the Poetic Edda poem Hávamál but the film's title comes from a stanza in Goethe's Roman Elegies; "Be pleased then, you, the living, in your delightfully warmed bed, before Lethe's ice-cold wave will lick your escaping foot". You, the living is a celebration of life, the wondrous normality, the everyday bizarre and an exploration on the grandeur of existence. Once again, the film contains a series of vignettes, fifty to be precise, and once more each short is beautifully composed and uniquely special. You, the Living is far more of a tragicomedy than a dark comedy, a little more surreal in places and much warmer. There is a continuous high level of humour that runs through the film, even in the fairly serious shorts but I wouldn't go as far to say this was the 'comedy' of Andersson's Living Trilogy. Think Aki Kaurismäki directing a Monty Python film under the influence of an early Fellini and you've something close to Andersson's second masterpiece. It has a glorious warmth about it, a unique charm and it would be wrong and impossible to compare it to anything else in all honesty. It may well be my favorite of the Trilogy (between Songs from the Second Floor 2000 and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence 2014) and once again I'm stunned that once again it wasn't well received. Andersson had huge financial issues in making the film and I'm sure the seven year gap was never intentional between films. One of the many downfalls of being a visionist I imagine, it only makes sense that the Swedish Film Institute refused to fund it (following the high praise the first film soon gathered abroad) once you know that the then chairman gave funding instead to his father-in-law, in an open act of nepotism. It's rare that the second film of a trilogy is as good as the first, and even rarer that the third be just as good but that is the case here, it is a trilogy of masterpieces.

Songs from the Second Floor

Dir: Roy Andersson

2000

*****

Roy Andersson's Songs from the Second Floor took a few people by surprise in 2000 and not necessarily in a good way but over time, and thanks to a couple of sequels that build on the idea, it is now considered one of the first great films of the new millennium. It is the ultimate dark comedy, riotously funny one second, devastatingly dark the next. The film begins with a segment of Cesar Vallejo's famous poem 'Beloved Be the One Who Sits Down'. The poem is about the downtrodden, as is the film, but the line 'Beloved Be the One Who Sits Down' is the one line in the poem that sticks out as somewhat strange but also rather likable. It's a strange thing to say but it suits the film's mood perfectly. The film is constructed of a series of unconnected vignettes that together interrogate aspects of normal modern life. Various quotes from Cesar Vallejo's work act as a recurring motif and the vignettes become bigger, glossier and more surreal as the film progresses. Andersson uses heavy symbolism throughout the film, some vignettes being easier to decipher than others, with a few being clearly personal to the director but I would argue that none of them are out of reach for the viewer, indeed some will mean different things to different people, although I don't believe they're meant to be open to interpretation as such. It really is as easy or as complex a film as the viewer makes it. Sometimes it is hard to work out if everything is happening at once, whether everyone is actually dead and this is some sort of purgatory or if what is happening is in the imagination of some of the key characters, all could be true but in way it doesn't really matter. Andersson asks that you think but he doesn't expect his audience to be geniuses. This is a celebration of people and a challenge against aspects of modern life that we find normal but are actually rather ridiculous, if you think about it for long enough. While the little things are mocked and made fun of initially, Andersson then asks, quite seriously, where it will all lead to. It's a tickle with a feather and then a slap in the face but always with a big smile. Each tableaux vivant is beautifully framed, always with subtle movement and perfectly lit. The film starts grey and colour is added slowly towards the film's conclusion. Every single image is meticulously designed and every single second is used productively. Every aspect of human life is explored, sometimes subtly and sometimes in rather an abrupt manner, until it is revealed that 'It's not easy being human'. It is visual poetry and fine art. Although Andersson covers pretty much every aspect of human life he still had more to say, explore and look at from a different angle and so the 'Living Trilogy' was born, with the brilliant You, the Living coming seven years later and A Pigeon Sat on aBranch Reflecting on Existence coming seven years after that.