Swedish
comedy A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting On Existence has a very
particular style of deadpan humor and an equally specific morbid sense of
empathy. As in his previous two films, writer/director Roy Andersson
( Songs from the Second Floor, You, The Living ) presents
several thematically-united sketches of life as it s experienced by the meek,
and the suffering, two groups of people who are (according to Andersson’s films) doomed to
inherit nothing. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
is, in that sense, a kind of alarmist comedy. It’s a series of comedic sketches about
Movies Are Back: About Endlessness Armond White
About Endlessness (
Om det oandliga), finally opens in the U.S. after a long COVID-lockdown delay, and it gives every reason touches every emotion we expect when going to the movies.
A Hollywood distributor would have insisted on selling a sexier title, but Andersson, the Swedish master of single-take theatricals, doesn’t deserve vulgarization. In 75 concise minutes (as long as any movie needs to be),
About Endlessness is completely provocative and satisfying. Each sketch dramatizes a random incident in a Scandinavian city. These scenes, stylizing the real and the imaginary, are light as air capriccios that go to the heart of human experience. The New York premiere is at Film Forum and demands to be seen on the big screen.
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Fragments of existence build the absurdist tableaux of esteemed Swedish director Roy Andersson. Each stand-alone vignette in his features over the last two decades evolved from impressions that kindled an emotion within him. Their origin varies. Some reconceptualize scenarios he’s witnessed, while others take cues from fine art.
Via their incisive slant, Andersson winks at the tragedy of mankind, the cruel and preposterous causes for our anguish, the fleeting moments of joy, the evil we do unto others, the relationships we procure, and our inescapable mortality. Inside his impeccably composed static frames our humanity is irreverently scrutinized.
Andersson’s 2014 film “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence,” which won the Golden Lion (top prize) from the Venice Film Festival, completed his critically revered trilogy on living that included 2000’s “Songs From the Second Floor” and 2007’s “You, the Living.”