Roy Andersson
-
Not “Making Bad Movies with State Money”: Roy Andersson on A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
I used to dismiss the films of Roy Andersson for their coldness and repetition; a mistake. While the Swedish filmmaker’s camera hangs at an ever-stiffer remove, each scene he shoots is suffused with minute power dynamics, rendering the players — aimlessly shuffling to and fro, outfitted in sepulchral pancake makeup — both tragically pathetic and pathetically hilarious. A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Contemplating Existence, the 73-year-old auteur’s latest, caps Andersson’s so-called “human existence trilogy” with a surprising rumination on repressed cultural memory stitched within the director’s signature vistas of human cruelty. Andersson has been perfecting this droll, widescreen aesthetic […]
by Steve Macfarlane on Jun 5, 2015 -
Cooed: A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
Powerful imagination and credible spatiality are among the major absences in today’s cinema lamented by Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson. A compensatory corrective is provided, of course, by his own films, including multiple award-winning commercials and the films in “The Living Trilogy”: Songs From the Second Floor (2000), You the Living (2007), and, just opening in the US, the marvelously wry A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014). The movies are assemblages of broad tableaus of relatively short duration, filmed with a static camera. The segments are like an inspired mix of tromp l’oeil, flattened Joseph Cornell boxes, and Gregory […]
by Howard Feinstein on Jun 2, 2015 -
Watch: How to Build a Beach on a Soundstage (for A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence)
How precisely does one go about building an entire beach on a soundstage? That’s one of the many challenges posed by master Swedish director Roy Andersson’s regular working method, which involves constructing meticulous sets to stage his mordant tableaux and droll takes on despair and death. This brief video shows his crew building a beach from the ground up — not a photo-realistic set, but pretty close, complete with meticulous arrangement of sand and one friendly dog roaming around. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence will be released here next year by Magnolia Pictures.
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 21, 2014 -
A Place for Research and Discovery: The Venice Film Festival
Even the rain knocked down the Lions. When a storm hit the Lido island around the central-weekend turning point, delegates could be seen gleefully snapping pictures of the overturned statues outside the Casinò, a simplistic metaphor for the Venice Film Festival’s shaky status in recent years. You’d think the bronze lions themselves would be tired of hearing stories about Toronto and the shrinking circuit space for awards-season launchpads. However, with the Toronto/Telluride battle over world premieres turning nasty and some bolder picks than usual from the NYFF, Venice director Alberto Barbera was wise to renounce the star-chasing madness and to […]
by Tommaso Tocci on Sep 17, 2014
