Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Australian Premiere - A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence

A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence - Opening Title

Described as a cinematic visionary, Swedish film director, Roy Andersson won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for this absurdist humoured film which consists of a tragicomic series of vignettes which become increasingly bizarre. The film shifts between different time periods with a weird collection of characters, extremely strange in behaviour and appear with make-up creating ghostly whitened faces. With a singular vision and using some interconnecting themes and characters, each vignette of the film is set in plain, austere and drab matte surroundings reinforcing the minimalist context and the dark irony of the actors dialogue. Hence in short time, the audience have witnessed a series of funny deaths, a large suggestive flamenco dancer and encountered the numerous rejections of Sam and Jonathon, two travelling salesmen selling novelty items such as vampire teeth and hideous masks.  The 17th Century Monarch Charles XII of Sweden visits a 21st Century Stockholm cafe for a mineral water with his army while marching to war against Russia (and returns again after his defeat) while numerous scenes show people answering phone calls always commenting to the unknown caller, how nice it is to hear that they are 'fine'.

During Q & A, Andersson described the film as being similar to visiting 37 different rooms and so it is, no more and no less. Many of the settings and images provide cringe-worthy, if not recognisable social and personal moments while the range of feelings evoked stretch from humour to horror. This is a film for an alternative, fringe or film-as-performance art audience.  

Charles XII of Sweden in a Stockholm cafe before going to war with Russia