A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is a comedy film from Sweden. It is a series of interconnected vignettes about the human condition, focusing mostly on loneliness, unrequited love, and death. The central figures are two depressed novelty salesman, trying to sell vampire fangs and laughing bag toys without being able to smile anymore. A Pigeon... is a strange film to watch. For one thing, the camera never moves in a scene. It's set still, most likely on a tripod, to offer an unyielding look at whatever is happening with the people onscreen. A dance class, a horrific dream sequence, the march of long-dead King Charles XII of Sweden into a contemporary bar, and more are treated with the same distance and lack of interaction. You're trapped in these sketches and only the blink of the lens to its next stationary home can save you.
These static shots force your eye to examine every inch of the frame to wonderful effect. A Pigeon... is filled with background gags and reactions that make it very clear the film is a comedy, even at its darkest moments. An employee might give the camera a side eye and a hand signal while her boss rambles about existential crises, or the watchman in the background might shrug and try as hard as he can not to watch or listen to the midnight rantings of a depressed man. Most important of all, these background characters often take center stage in their own sketch later, or be the stars of another sketch existing in the world of characters they have no material connection to.
The film is bizarre. It's like a Monty Python film with no actually throughline. Yes, we visit with the salesman every few scenes, but even their existence is not a plot so much as a collection of moments.
The connections are done through setting and sound rather than story. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is used as a bizarre drinking song and in its original form to draw a connection between any scene involving soldiers or another time period. The two very different bars are always the settings for crowd scenes with dialogue, a near empty street always means existential ruminations, and a doorway or window means innocuous daily activity or small talk. It's when the setting changes to one-off locations that the big moments happen, defining the focus and intent of the film in brutal, disturbing terms.
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is quite honestly one of the strangest films I've ever seen. It's brilliant for achieving what it sets out to do without losing its humor. Even at its most brutal (and trust me, this film contains one of the most disturbing scenes in recent memory, topping any visible blood, gore, or act of violence you'll find in deadly R-rated genre fair), the film cocks its eyebrow and winks at you to remind you that you should be in on the joke. The punchline just might not make sense until the credits finally roll.
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is currently streaming on Netflix.
