A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is a 2014 internationally co-produced black comedy-drama film written and directed by Roy Andersson. It is the third installment in his "Living" trilogy, following Songs from the Second Floor and You, the Living. It premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival where it was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film. It was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards but it was not nominated. It was released in Sweden on 14 November 2014, by TriArt Film.
Its title is a reference to the 1565 painting The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting depicts a rural wintertime scene, with some birds perched on tree branches. Andersson said he imagined that the birds in the scene are watching the people below, wondering what they are doing. He explained the title of the film as a "different way of saying 'what are we actually doing', that's what the movie is about." At the Venice Film Festival, Andersson said that the film had been inspired by the 1948 Italian film Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica.
Plot
The slow cinema movie, hyper reality, consists of a series of mostly self-contained tableaux, sometimes connected by recurring themes or characters. The story loosely follows two travelling novelty salesmen, Jonathan and Sam, who live in a desolate flophouse, and their unsuccessful attempts to win customers for their joke articles. Although there is no main storyline in the traditional sense, all scenes are connected.Cast
- Holger Andersson as Jonathan
- Nils Westblom as Sam