Photograph
courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
Venice 71: Film Festival - En Duva
Satt Pa en Gren och Funderade pa Tillvaron (A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting
on Existence) - Roy Andersson. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
directed by Roy Andersson, staring Holger Andersson, Nisse Vestblom.
Like modern times’ Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Sam and Jonathan, two traveling 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 humor and tragedy that is in us, life’s
grandeur as well as frailty of humanity.
Photograph
courtesy La Biennale di Venezia
A Pigeon Sat on
a Branch Reflecting on Existence. “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on
Existence consists of everyday and out-of-the ordinary stories portraying our
existence in its grandeur and pettiness, beauty and tragedy, exaggeration and
sadness—with a panoramic view, as if told by a bird reflecting on the human
condition. The pigeon is astonished by the humans—their activities, follies,
prides, and agitation, which he tries to make sense of and understand. In the
Living Trilogy, of which En duva satt pa en gren och funderade pa tillvaron is
the third film, I aim to create a tension between the banal and the essential,
the comic and the tragic—to show the dialectic and dynamic nature of existence,
while shaping the thought that mankind is potentially heading towards
apocalypse, but also that the outcome is in our hands. The Swedish director Roy
Andersson states.