A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence (2014): Review
Stub • 273 Words • Film, 2025 • 11/22/2025
⚠️ This post contains a rougher cut of my thoughts on the topic and may be updated in the future. Please forgive any mistakes or lack of polish!
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A film rich in style:
- drab colors
- depth in frame and dynamic backgrounds
- fixed camera one shot scenes
- doors and windows or mirrors
- It’s Not Easy Being Human – The Living Paintings of Roy Andersson | Film Qualia on YouTube
- The Magnificent Anders(s)ons - The Look of Reality
Repetition:
- The sales pitch
- “I’m happy to hear you’re doing fine”
- Battlefield hymn of the republic
- One sided phone calls
Tone: eerie, uncomfortable, awkward/cringe
Usage of Humor:
- This movie is funny, but in a heady way that doesn’t produce any huge laughter (at least in my experience).
- This is a real study in absurdity and how just incongruity can provide some spontaneous laughter but that anticipation really does a lot of the heavy lifting in humor.
- Deadpan surrealist nordic humor = whimsy??
- I think the absurd/surreal is definitely to showcase the inherent absurdity of life.
- “You can’t feel the day of the week”
Contrast:
- The miserable novelty toy salesmen is a good humorous contrast.
- “i’m happy to hear you doing fine” and all the different contexts it could be said
- charles xii and current time
- the main characters mostly experience misfortune but then in the vignettes:
- little moments of beauty; helping an old man put a coat on, little girls blowing bubbles, a mother playing with her baby
- the vignettes don’t really follow the style of the movie they seem almost outside of it
I do think that some things are played purely for shock value.
- Animal cruelty
- Sexual assault (kinda played for laughs?)
- Murder/ethnic cleansing (could’ve been a dream technically)