A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

The Australian Centre for the moving image (ACMI) will screen A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting on Existence (En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron) (2014) – the final chapter in the award-winning -Living Trilogy' from acclaimed Swedish director, Roy Andersson from 29 October to 15 November 2015.

Winner of the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence plays out in a series of linked and stand-alone vignettes. The film opens with the signature Andersson character, static, Kabuki-style white face, starring into a weary museum cabinet with the taxidermied pigeon of the title looking back at him.

In amongst the film's comedic existential queries, Andersson's film loosely follows two narrative threads. Sweden's warring King Charles XII returns unexpectedly from the 18th century to gallop about in cafes and recruit unsuspecting modern men for his impending war with Russia. Meanwhile, two hapless Laurel-and-Hardy-style salesmen travel in and out of the frame selling vampire fangs, laugh bags and fright masks. As they say, 'We're in the entertainment business. We want people to have fun."

Andersson's reoccurring examinations of colonialism, the Holocaust, beauty and absurdity fill each tableau. Intricately constructed down to the final detail, the grand set pieces are staggering and hugely inventive. The Telegraph UK film critic Robbie Collin perfectly captured the tone of Andersson's films when he said, 'Imagine Jacques Tati stuck in Ingmar Bergman's spare room, and you're in the right area."
 
This quirky and provocative examination of being human follows Songs from the Second Floor (Sånger från andra våningen) (2000) and You, the Living (2007), both of which will also screen at ACMI.