A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

Showings

Milliken at the Dennos Museum Thu, Jul 30, 2015 12:00 PM
Film Info
Section:Foreign
Release Year:2014
Runtime:100 min.
Rating:PG-13
Production Country:France
Germany
Norway
Sweden
Original Language:English
Swedish
Subtitles:English
Cast/Crew Info
Cast:Holger Andersson
Nils Westblom
Viktor Gyllenberg
Lotti Törnros
Jonas Gerholm
Ola Stensson
Director:Roy Andersson
Produced by:Pernilla Sandström
Screenwriter:Roy Andersson
Cinematography:István Borbás
Gergely Pálos
Editing By:Alexandra Strauss
Music By:Hani Jazzar
Gorm Sundberg

Description

Last year’s Golden Lion winner at the Venice Film Festival—the final part of Swedish master Roy Andersson’s trilogy on being a human being—is a cinephile’s dream. Shifting between nightmare, fantasy, reverie, and even an impromptu musical number, “Pigeon” is a dazzling, provocative, hilariously deadpan, and deeply disturbing exploration of man’s perpetual inhumanity to man. Presented as a series of darkly comic, intricate tableaus—like Wes Anderson crossed with Monty Python, but Swedish—the film shifts between two loose narrative strands: in one, two hapless novelty salesmen wander around trying to sell their inventory of vampire fangs and rubber masks; in the other, Charles XII, Sweden’s most bellicose king, reappears in modern times to carry on his series of disastrous defeats. But that is just surface: the film contains multitudes. It’s as inexplicable, and as glorious, as life itself. Also, beautiful. Don’t miss it on the big screen.