A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

by Roy Andersson

Winner of The Golden Lion for Best Film at The 71st Venice Film Festival 2014

“If you only see one movie this summer, see ‘A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence’. It builds to an ineffable beauty so sublime that you might have a hard time remembering what it is that other films are even trying to accomplish.”– David Erlich, Time Out NY

“Excruciatingly funny. There are images here that lodge in the part of the brain where dreams are forged. For a film posing the heaviest questions, Pigeon soars with the birds.”– Cath Clarke, Time Out NY

“Rarely has the contemplation of life’s potential meaninglessness been so delightful. World cinema may have no better builder of delightful scenes than Roy Andersson.”– Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

“The funniest film of the year. Surprisingly profound. Grade A.”– Eric Kohn, Indiewire

“It’s cinephile christmas. It brings Roy Andersson into the company of Beckett and TS Eliot, and captures the awful, glorious absurdity of being a human.”– Jessica Kiang, The Playlist

“Critic’s choice. Director Andersson is a brilliant joker. There is ample pleasure to be gleaned from his formal discipline and his downbeat wit.”– A.O. Scott, NY Times

“It’s beautiful and haunting. Once you’ve seen his work you’ll almost assuredly be converted to his warped-as-f*** sensibility.”– David Fear, Rolling Stone

“A master class in comic timing.”– Peter Debruge, Variety

“A source of joy from start to finish.”– Howard Feinstein, Filmmaker

“5 out of 5 stars. Glorious. What a bold, beguiling and utterly unclassifiable director Andersson is. He thinks life is a comedy and feels it’s a tragedy, and is able to wrestle these conflicting impulses into a gorgeous, deadpan deadlock.”– Xan Brooks, The Guardian

“5 out of 5 stars. It’s heaven. You just have to watch it, then grab a net and try to coax your soul back down from the ceiling.”– Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

“5 out of 5 stars. A comedy as weird and wonderful as its title. It exists in some surreal place where Ingmar Bergman meets The Office.”– Kate Muir, The Times

“Truly astounding. Open-minded audiences will be elated. Andersson is an artist to treasure.”– Nicholas Barber, BBC

“Andersson is in a class of his own.”– Tim Grierson, Paste

SYNOPSIS

Like modern times’ Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Sam and Jonathan, two travelling salesmen peddling novelty items, take us on a kaleidoscopic wandering through human destinies. A trip that shows us the beauty of single moments, the pettiness of others, the humour and tragedy that is in us, life’s grandeur as well as frailty of humanity.

DIRECTORS’ NOTE OF INTENTION

BRUEGEL THE ELDER: Among his other Renaissance masterpieces, the sixteenth century Flemish artist painted an exquisite landscape entitled “Hunters in the Snow”. From a snowy hilltop overlooking a small Flemish town, we see villagers skating on a frozen lake in a valley. In the foreground, three hunters and their dogs return from a successful hunt. Above them, perched on the naked branches of a tree, three birds curiously observe the endeavours and pursuits of the people below. Bruegel specialised in detailed landscapes populated by peasant and frequently adopted the sweeping perspective of a bird to tell a story of society and human existence. His oeuvre also contains fantastical allegories of man’s vices and follies, using flawless satire to express the tragic contains fantastical allegories of man’s vices and follies, using flawless satire to express the tragic contradictions of being. In his painting, “Hunters in the Snow”, the birds appear to be speculating: “What are the humans doing down there? Why are they so busy?”

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch consists of a bird’s panoramic view of the human condition, in which the bird not only reflects on human existence but also worries deeply about it, as I do myself. The pigeon is astonished that humans do not see an approaching apocalypse, though it is in man’s ability to avoid destroying the future for themselves. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch shows the looming apocalypse and offers the possibility to believe in our capacity to avoid it.

NEUE SACHLICHKEIT: With my last two movies I embarked upon what I call “abstraction”. I dared to leave realism and naturalism and entered the territory of abstract aesthetics. With A Pigeon Sat on a Branch, I will continue and perhaps go even deeper into abstraction, while making the images clearer and brighter. This ambition echoes the Neue Sachlichkeit/New Objectivity art movement that swept through Germany in the 1920s. The paintings were very clear, very concrete, very “Deutlich”. August Sander, a photographer from that time, also inspired me in his portrayal of German social classes. One photo (Pastry Chef, 1928) features a chef stirring a casserole. He looks trapped, aggressive, and dangerous. Sander captured something essential there about social order in this single, unapologetic image. Some of my favourite Neue Sachlichkeit painters include Karl Hofer, Felix Nussbaum and Georg Scholz. Their combination of reality and fantasy resulted in abstracted condensed realism, a kind of “super-realism”, an ambition that I also have for A Pigeon Sat on a Branch, in which abstraction is to be condensed, purified, and simplified; scenes should emerge as cleansed as memories and dreams. Yes this is no easy task: “c’est difficile d’être facile” – it is difficult to be very simple, but I will try.

HOMER: The nonlinear narrative found in Homer’s Odyssey, a work that, three thousand years later, remains uniquely profound and compelling, is an inspiration for the film. In Swedish and German, the word irrfärd/Irrfahrt, or wandering, suggests special, unexpected situations. In the Odyssey, Odysseus’s meandering Irrfahrt to Ithaca is characterized by an astonishing mix of logic, fantasy, and surprise. The journey in A Pigeon Sat on a Branch will involve myriad aspects of existence, reality, and time. The epic nature and content of the film references the thematic and contextual richness of The Odyssey.

Roy Andersson

TEAM

DIRECTOR & SCRIPTWRITER
Roy Andersson

PRODUCER
Pernilla Sandström

LINE PRODUCER
Johan Carlsson

CINEMATOGRAPHERS
István Borbás
Gergely Pálos

ARTISTIC ADVISOR
Kalle Boman

COORDINATION & CONTINUITY
Jane Ljung

EDITING
Alexandra Strauss

VFX ARTIST
Petter Cohen

SOUND MIX
Studio 24 Mix
Robert Hefter FSS
Owe Svensson FSS

FOLEY ARTIST
Claes Lundberg

SOUND RECORDING
Robert Hefter FSS
Felix Aneer
Owe Svensson FSS
Christian Wykman

SET DESIGN
Ulf Jonsson
Julia Tegström
Nicklas Nilsson
Sandra Parment
Isabel Sjöstrand

WARDROBE
Julia Tegström

TROMPE L’OEIL
Ulf Jonsson

CASTING
Sophia Frykstam
Katja Wik
Stig-Åke Nilsson
Zora Rux
Andrea Eckerbom

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

TITLE: A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2014
GENRE: Drama
RUNNING TIME: 100 min
WORLD PREMIERE: September 2nd 2014
NATIONAL PREMIERE: November 12th 2014
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Sweden, Norway, France, Germany
LANGUAGE: Swedish
DIRECTOR: Roy Andersson
SCREENWRITER: Roy Andersson
PRODUCER: Pernilla Sandström
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: István Borbás, Gergely Pálos
MUSIC: Traditional

PRINCIPAL CAST: Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom, Charlotta Larsson, Viktor Gyllenberg, Lotti Törnros, Jonas Gerholm, Ola Stensson, Oscar Salomonsson, Roger Olsen Likvern

PRODUCTION COMPANY: Roy Andersson Filmproduktion AB, Sibyllegatan 24, SE-114 42 Stockholm, Sweden

PRODUCED BY: Roy Andersson Filmprodukton AB in co-operation with 4 ½ Fiksjon AS, Håkon Øverås; Essential Filmproduktion, Parisienne de Production, Philippe Bober; Sveriges Television AB; Arte France Cinéma; ZDF/Arte

WITH SUPPORT FROM: Svenska Filminstitutet, Filmkonsulent Suzanne Glansborg; Eurimages Council of Europé, Roberto Olla; Nordisk Film- och TV Fond, Hanne Palmqvist; Norska Filmfonden, Produktionsrådgivare Anne Frilseth; Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Petra Müller; Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, Frédérique Bredin

PHOTO GALLERY

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