Some viewers are going to hate, hate, hate the droll Swedish existentialist comedy A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence, but it’s kind of a masterpiece. For most of its 101 minutes, dull Swedes sit and stand talking about dull things. It’s no secret that the Scandinavians (who The Wife refers to as “Your people”) are not the most lively bunch. Filmmaker Roy Andersson uses this trope to probe the meaning of life itself.
Salon.com critic Andrew O’Hehir has accurately described this film as “extreme-deadpan”. It is made up of vignettes filmed in static shots where people hardly move for 1-4 minutes – a looooong time. There is nothing on the walls of any of the bleak rooms. The characters converse in empty social conventions, talking about weather and such. Everyone says, “I’m happy to hear that you’re doing fine” because they can’t think of anything else to say. The highlight of their lives is when a comely young woman removes a stone from her shoe. In one bus stop discussion about what day of the week it is, we have the theme distilled: “it would be chaos” if we didn’t follow the routine. All of these people need more than a little chaos.
This is the third movie in a trilogy by Andersson. (I’ve seen and relished one of the prior films, Songs from the Second Floor). Like Pigeon, Songs is very funny, but Pigeon is more ambitious and digs deeper.
In the primary recurring thread, we follow a pair of sad sack novelty salesmen, who see their hopeless mission as “to help people have fun”. The joke is there may not be any value/fun/point to life but ESPECIALLY if you are a brooding Swede.
During the end credits, there is a final contrast, juxtaposing the unrestrained American rockabilly music set against an image of mordant Swedes.
There are absurdist episodes where 18th Century King Carl XII rides his steed into a modern Swedish cafe. (It helps to know that Carl spurned the company of women and that his defeat in the Battle of Poltava signaled the end of Swedish empire.)
And then there is a horrifyingly surreal dream sequence that illustrates the horrors of European colonialism. It is about inhumane brutality that Andersson believes still haunts Europe until forgiveness is sought; there is a reference to Sweden’s brief colonial past. This segment is less evocative (and even unnecessary) for US viewers unless we relate it to our own legacy of slavery.
Is the movie pointless? Or is the point that life is pointless? We do see some brief tender moments of a couple at a window and another in a meadow. The foe, it seems, is loneliness. We have only each other.
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
