One of the few comedies this summer that deals with mortality, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is hilariously disturbing and disturbingly hilarious. His third film in his cycle of death trilogy, Andersson builds on the humor and absurdity of everyday life like in his previous films (Songs from the Second Floor and You, The Living) by filming 39 vignettes capturing the bleak and funny aspects surrounding monotony and death. If there is a plot in this film, it focuses in and out on two depressed joke shop salesmen (Holger Andersson and Niles Westblom) with such irony and morbid humor reminiscent of characters in a Coen Brothers film. The plot is diverted by Andersson's surrealist visions of singing barmaids, 19th century soldiers taking over a local watering hole, and death by wine bottles. Winner of the Golden Lion at last year's Venice Film Festival, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is as thought-provoking as it is provocatively funny.
In interviews leading up to the film's release, Andersson said that he was inspired by De Sica's Bicycle Thieves while making the movie. The only reference to the film is seeing a cyclist on screen for three minutes. Apart from that, Andersson tips his hat towards the evocative imagery of Luis Bunuel and Terry Gilliam as he captures chaos of industrialist Sweden with static camera shots focusing on the offbeat nature of everyday life. Like Todd Solondz's films, Andersson's morbid humor leaves you embarrassed to laugh at some of the film's most uncomfortable scenes, such as a colonialist army whipping slaves into a revolving furnace or a dying matriarch unable to grasp the concept of "you can't take it with you."
The humor of Andersson's film is accentuated by the polka and waltz-fueled score by Hani Jazzar and Gorm Sundberg. However, the humor is not as consistent as his 2007 masterpiece, You, The Living. All and all, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is another bold attempt by Andersson to capture death with a macabre sense of humor with a distinctive vision that is as beautiful as it is haunting.
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