A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)

Director
Roy Andersson

Main cast
Holger Andersson; Nisse Vestblom; Viktor Gyllenberg; Lotti Törnros; Jonas Gerholm

Genres
Drama, Comedy

Description
An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.


Similar movies

Holly is tired of moving every time her mom Jean breaks up with yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man, an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her self-esteem.
In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman (Jessica Lundberg) remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.
An unorthodox and irreverent DJ begins to shake up things when he is assigned to the US Armed Services Radio station in Vietnam.
A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.
One summer, mother and ex dancer Eileen lapses back to a troubled past as she starts a new relationship... we watch as she and her family combust. The film, shot on a micro budget, treads between darkness and humour as it moves from its beginning in the suburban cricket club to its conclusion at a music festival.
When Camiel, a gay dentist, and Simon, a carefree café owner, collide in a traffic accident their lives become intrinsically entangled. When they bump into each other 14 years later, Simon is severely ill. Camiel experiences at close range how Simon and those around him come to terms with his illness. The strength and humour that Simon shows during this time leave a lasting impression on Camiel.
A very rich and successful playboy amuses himself by stealing artwork, but may have met his match in a seductive detective.
Julian and Jeremy, two brothers known as the "Lewis Twins", prefer to spend their time on drugs and joyriding. When their father, Fatty Lewis, breaks his leg working for local bigwig Bryn Cartwright, they show up demanding compensation. Underestimating the vicious humour of the twins Bryn brusquely refuses to pay for the un-insured Fatty and unleashes a ferocious feud.
An elderly artist thinks he has become too stale and is past his prime. His friend (and agent) persuades him to go to an offshore island to try once more. On the island he re-discovers his muse in the form of a young girl.
A wax museum run by a demented doctor contains statues of such crime figures as Jack the Ripper and Bluebeard. In addition to making wax statues the doctor performs plastic surgery. It is here that an arch fiend takes refuge. The museum also houses a statue of Charlie. Frustrated number-two son kicks statue in rear; oops, number-two son wrong in his assumption
Two runaway kids hide in a museum. Once they are locked inside overnight, they try to solve a mystery about a statue supposedly carved by Michaelangelo, known as "The Angel". Will they solve the mystery in time?
Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Southmere, a Queen's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies.
This surrealistic comedy follows the life of Haruo Maekawa, a young man who makes a living catching squid. Haruo is obsessed with catching a legendary giant squid rumored to live in Tokyo Bay. Haruo's uncle Takashi, fallen on hard times, comes to stay with his nephew until he can get back on his feet. Uncle Takashi is addicted to energy drinks, and seduces any woman in sight, including Haruo's girlfriend Rika. While praying at a Shintō shrine, Uncle Takashi is bitten in the scrotum by a poisonous snake and dies. The uncle is destined to spend the afterlife in Hell unless his nephew and girlfriend can rescue him from the King of Hell.
TV producer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) becomes frustrated when network brass reject his sitcom idea. Hoping to get fired, Delacroix pitches the worst idea he can think of: a minstrel show. The network not only airs it, but it incredibly becomes a smash hit. Michael Rapaport co-stars in this searing satire.
Mischa, a mute boy, sets out on a surrealistic journey together with his father and two men. Their means of transportation is an old Soviet locomotive, loaded with stolen coal. The travellers intend to sell off the loot on their way through the borderless steppes of inner Russia. As a parallel to the main plot, sequences of a mysterious travelling circus keep reappearing in a very suggestive way. Many of the odd artists at the circus are people that the four protagonists encounter in the wilderness along the overgrown railway. All through the movie there is a sensation of magic crossed with pure realism, stressed by the crackling communistic infrastructure and a twisted sense of humor. The border between reality and fantasy is very subtle here. The Railway is a story about strong family ties, but also an ambitious interpretation of the clash between the Russia of old and new. One could call it the rebirth of a long forgotten genre: the Russian wonder story.
When recently single Steven moves into his new apartment, cable guy Chip comes to hook him up -- and doesn't let go. Initially, Chip is just overzealous in his desire to be Steven's pal, but when Steven tries to end the "friendship," Chip shows his dark side. He begins stalking Steven, who's left to fend for himself because no one else can believe Chip's capable of such behavior.
Childhood friends Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven got married and quickly divorced. Now Tracy is about to marry again, this time to a shrewd social-climbing businessman. Bing still loves her. Spy magazine blackmails Grace's family by threatening to reveal her playboy father's exploits if not allowed to cover the wedding.
Fed up with the cruelty and stupidity of American culture, an unlikely duo goes on a killing spree, killing reality TV stars, bigots and others they find repugnant in this black comedy.
This sprawling, surrealist musical serves as an allegory for the pitfalls of capitalism, as it follows the adventures of a young coffee salesman in Europe. Many actors play multiple roles, giving the film a stagy tone.
During spring break, Cody and Zack are approached to join the Gemini Project, a high-tech research center studying the dynamics between twins. Shockingly, they find themselves interconnected in a way they've never been before! When one twin experiences a sensation, thought or feeling, the other twin feels it too. While this newfound revelation helps the boys see eye to eye for the first time, it puts them in more danger than they could have imagined.
Bourgeois convention is demolished in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem. Featuring an elegant soiree with guests seated at toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses, this perverse, playfully absurd comedy of non sequiturs deftly compiles many of the themes that preoccupied Buñuel throughout his career—from the hypocrisy of conventional morality to the arbitrariness of social arrangements.
Paris-based wine expert Steven Spurrier heads to California in search of cheap wine that he can use for a blind taste test in the French capital. Stumbling upon the Napa Valley, the stuck-up Englishman is shocked to discover a winery turning out top-notch chardonnay. Determined to make a name for himself, he sets about getting the booze back to Paris.
Swope is the only black man on the executive board of an advertising firm, and is accidentally put in charge after the death of the chairman of the board.
A Hollywood studio executive is being sent death threats by a writer whose script he rejected - but which one?
Director Jang Jin's first romantic comedy presents a rare love story between a once famous baseball player and his ardent lover. Dong Chiseong (played by Jeong Jaeyeong), a star baseball pitcher in high school and college, hurts his shoulder, and is replaced as an outfielder. What is worse, he experiences a constant nose-bleeding and hears from the doctor that he has only three months to live due to a malignant tumor in his lung. Deeply depressed, he goes to a bar to drink away his sorrows until he falls asleep. A pretty bartender Han Iyeon (Lee Nayeong), finds him passed out and picks him up and carries him home.
Young Augusten Burroughs absorbs experiences that could make for a shocking memoir: the son of an alcoholic father and an unstable mother, he's handed off to his mother's therapist, Dr. Finch, and spends his adolescent years as a member of Finch's bizarre extended family.
A deadpan, picaresque buddy comedy about two old friends through a series of urban adventures, loosely connected by the skull of an executed French aristocrat. Winter Song is a typically irreverent Iosselianian jaunt through a classy Paris apartment block contemplating the past, present and future.
Up-and-coming manzai stand-up comedy duo Emi-Abi has lost consummate funny man Unno (a surprisingly touching Tomoya Maeno) to an accident, leaving conceited straight man Jitsudo (Ryu Morioka) to contend with his diminished career prospects as a bland, pretty face entertainer. Guided by his manager Natsumi (Haru Kuroki), who demonstrates stronger comedy chops than her own star, Jitsudo comes to learn the circumstances of his friend's passing, as well as the life-and-death stakes of a career in comedy. Demonstrating a careful balance of tone across tragedy and deadpan and gross-out humor, writer/director Kensaku Watanabe expands "Emi-Abi"'s hilarious premise into a strikingly assured meditation on artistic rivalry and self-actualization.
Rajesh Shivakumar(Madhavan) is a college hoodlum who has his first crush on Reena Joseph (Reema Sen), who unfortunately, is engaged to be married to Rajiv Samuel (Abbas), an Indian engineer settled abroad. In an effort to gain her heart, Maddy impersonates Rajiv and gets close to Reena, aided by his grandfather Subbuni (Nagesh) and his crooked sidekick Chockalingam (Vivek). However, the real Rajiv shows up, bringing a shocking end to Reena's romantic interlude.
A man wakes up in an alley, bleeding and with no memory of who he is. He stumbles into a coffee shop and is befriended by a charitable ex-nun who is failing in her attempts to write marketable pornography.
Proud father Stanley Banks remembers the day his daughter, Kay, got married. Starting when she announces her engagement through to the wedding itself, we learn of all the surprises and disasters along the way.
Spike Jonze’s debut feature film is a love story mix of comedy and fantasy. The story is about an unsuccessful puppeteer named Craig, who one day at work finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters it’s mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.
A comedy film that looks into the loosely connected lives of people with strange sexual fantasies. A woman with a dangerous fantasy and her partner's struggle to please her. A man who begins an affair with his own wife without her knowing anything about it. A couple struggling to keep things together after a sexual experiment spins out of control. A woman who can only find pleasure in her husband's pain. A call centre operator caught in the middle of a dirty and chaotic phone call. And the distractingly charming new neighbour who connects them all.
Rootless Hungarian émigré Willie, his pal Eddie, and visiting sixteen-year-old cousin Eva always manage to make the least of any situation, whether aimlessly traversing the drab interiors and environs of New York City, Cleveland, or an anonymous Florida suburb.
British sad sack Gary is a failed entrepreneur who has just arrived in Beijing's stylish Sanlitun district, allegedly to start a business. There are other reasons why he has uprooted himself — he's followed his ex-wife and young son, for one — but he soon finds out that China isn't the easiest place to succeed. Blissfully untouched by self-awareness, and only fitfully in tune with reality, Gary sallies forth to make money, armed with faith in himself and little to no knowledge of Chinese culture. He soon hooks up with Frank, a trust-fund kid from Australia who offers to mentor Gary in Eastern ways, although Frank's pedagogical method is restricted to yelling at Gary for being a Westerner and not being as "Chinese" as him.
A new film revives the 1980s rivalry between Alex “Hurricane” Higgins (Luke Treadaway) and Steve “The Nugget” Davis (Will Merrick), two very different personalities who helped popularise the sport on TV. In 1985, the world snooker final was watched by 18.5 million people, still a record for a post-midnight audience in the UK. Debuting on BBC iPlayer, The Rack Pack is directed by Brian Welsh (Glasgow Girls, Black Mirror), written by Shaun Pye, Mark Chappell and Alan Connor, the team behind A Young Doctor’s Notebook. Nichola Burley plays Alex’s wife Lynn Higgins, with James Bailey as Jimmy White and Kevin Bishop as Davis’s manager Barry Hearn.
Stark naked man comes out from the sea and begins to walk the streets, interfering in daily episodes, always in search of justice. He names himself Finis Hominis (The End of Man, in latin), and soon becomes sort of a modern Messiah, capable of performing miracles. An adulterous woman and a cheated husband are among his most faithful followers, as well as a group of hippies.
Ample teen Tracy Turnblad wants nothing more than to be on the hip local TV dance program, "The Corny Collins Show" -- and when her dream comes true, her lively moves and bubbly personality meet with unexpected popularity. But after witnessing firsthand the terrible state of race relations in 1960s Baltimore, Turnblad becomes an outspoken advocate for desegregation.
Failing to make it on his own, 27-year-old Jim moves back in with his parents and deals with crippling family obligations.
Vivian's family are penniless nomads, moving from one cheap flat to another in Beverly Hills so she and her brothers can attend the city's schools. Uncle Mickey sends them money to survive. When Mickey's daughter Rita runs away from an asylum, Vivian's dad offers shelter to her if Mickey will pay for a plush flat. Vivian must babysit her adult cousin, making sure she gets to nursing school and avoids pills and booze. But Vivian has her own problems: she's curious about sex, likes an older neighbor kid, has inherited her mother's ample breasts, and wants a family that doesn't embarrass her. Can she help Rita, keep Uncle Mickey happy, and feel OK about her body and her family?
Gerry and Sewell are broke. Gerry's still at school and Sewell is unemployed/ They botyh wish for better things in life. Owning two season tickets to their beloved football club is their biggest dream of all. The tickets cost £1000 - they're £1000 short. But they are nothing if not resourceful, and they set themselves a mission to raise the cash. While they think up increasingly outlandish money making schemes - from selling junk to shoplifting and the odd bit of housebreaking - real life begins to interfere with the pair's final scam going hilariously awry landing them in jail, only to discover that their punishment gets them exactly where they want to be!
Teenage Mary Cummings, who has "been Born Again her whole life," is about to enter her senior year at American Eagle Christian High School near Baltimore with her Fundamentalist Christian friends Hilary Faye and Veronica, the three of whom have formed a girl group called the Christian Jewels. Everything seems perfect—until Mary’s "perfect Christian boyfriend" Dean tells her, as they’re swimming underwater, that he thinks he's gay.
Sam Montgomery is a tomboyish, unpopular girl at school. She has been text messaging a somebody named Nomad for a few months and he asks her to meet him at the Halloween dance at 11:00 in the middle of the dance floor. The only problem is, she must get back to the diner, ran by her wicked Stepmom Fiona by 12 sharp because she is not supposed to be there. Before Nomad can found out who she is, she must leave with her best friend, Carter driving her back to the diner. After that night, everything in Sam's life goes wacko!
Depressed after being dumped by his actress fiance', a man tries to win her back by agreeing to help her elderly British father move while she films a low-budget movie overseas.
Two New York City children who launch a hilarious scheme to get what they most want this holiday season.
The story is freely inspired by the life and work of Jan Saudek, who is probably the most well-known Czech photographer internationally and has indisputably been involved in the development of international photography. He has exhibited and sold his work in the largest galleries and art houses, he has earned international recognition and awards, he enjoys great popularity and interest - he is a true phenomenon.
Two wealthy sisters, both heiresses to their family's cosmetics fortune, are given a wake-up call when a scandal and ensuing investigation strip them of their wealth.
"She Wants Me" is being produced by Rob Margolies and Danny Roth of StoneBrook Entertainment, and is executive produced by Jeremy Schott. Casting has already begun and Judy Henderson is over seeing casting in New York, while Emily Schweber will be over seeing the casting in Los Angeles. Offers are already out and attached cast will be announced shortly. The film will be shooting in Los Angeles and New York this Winter 2010.
Tim Kelly is an orphan who runs away after his orphanage burns down. Presumed to be killed in the fire, he is able to roam the streets of New York freely. He meets Max Ginsberg, an old Jewish junk dealer with rheumatism, and the two strike a partnership and a close friendship.
Ordinary man-in-the-street Arthur Ferguson Jones leads a very straightforward life. He's never late for work and nothing interesting ever happens to him. One day everything changes: he oversleeps and is fired as an example, he's then mistaken for evil criminal killer Mannion and is arrested. The resemblance is so striking that the police give him a special pass to avoid a similar mistake. The real Mannion sees the opportunity to steal the pass and move around freely and chaos results.
Five young men linger in a postadolescent limbo, dreaming of adventure and escape from their small seacoast town. They while away their time spending the lira doled out by their indulgent families on drink, women, and nights at the local pool hall. Federico Fellini’s second solo directorial effort (originally released in the U.S. as The Young and the Passionate) is a semiautobiographical masterpiece of sharply drawn character sketches: Skirt chaser Fausto, forced to marry a girl he has impregnated; Alberto, the perpetual child; Leopoldo, a writer thirsting for fame; and Moraldo, the only member of the group troubled by a moral conscience. An international success and recipient of an Academy Award® nomination for Best Original Screenplay, I vitelloni compassionately details a year in the life of a group of small-town layabouts struggling to find meaning in their lives.
Layla Maloney is fed up with boyfriend Sonny Koufax's perpetual loafing, so when 5-year-old Julian is left on Sonny's doorstep, he assumes a fatherly role to prove he's responsible and to win Layla's love. Trouble is, Sonny has grown attached to the kid, who's really the son of his out-of-town roommate.
A retired teacher and a soap star leave their routines and the men in their lives behind and embark on a weekend trip.
Behind the facade of a beautiful urban home, a combination of complacency and bad investments has left power couple Ben and Gail disconnected, resentful and just about broke. When the cash-strapped yuppies fire their teen-aged daughter's lesbian Mexican nanny, Margarita, they set off a chain of events that lead to her deportation.
Darcy is a 28-year-old, good-looking charmer with the life aspirations of a 15-year-old. He’s happiest when he’s with his best friends Lynn and Peter, and he turns to his 13-year-old sage/skateboard buddy Trish when he needs a little guidance. But his carefree life is coming to an end. Lynn has accepted a “real” job on the other side of the world, Minneapolis, and is dragging boyfriend Peter along with her! Suddenly, Darcy finds himself facing the prospects of losing his two closest friends, his roommate, his job, and worst of all, his perpetual adolescence.
In the nineties the Yugoslavia Federation falls apart in bloody wars. Perpetual student Milan, a Serb from a patriarchal community and Kenan, a Muslim cellist, are a homosexual couple living in Sarajevo. Their lives, intimate and public, are shaken up by the aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose devastating consequences unfold in inter-ethnic hatred. Trapped in Sarajevo during the siege of the Serb forces, the lovers manage to flee to Milan's home village and there they take shelter, waiting for Milan's father, Ljubo, to find a way to the Netherlands. Witnessing the brutality of Serb forces and their hatred towards Muslims, Milan desperately improvises: he disguises Kenan as a woman and begins to present him as his wife, Milena, a secret discovered by Milan's best friend, Lunja. Milan is drafted into the army and the situation becomes almost unbearable for Kenan. His one companion, is Ranka, a waitress in a local café, a woman whose dark secrets terrify most of the villagers ...
film from In this hilarious comedy drama, join an eccentric group of friends and neighbours as they embark on their fun-filled and disaster-prone day trips. With a mix of idiosyncratic personalities all crammed into one vehicle, including a perpetual optimist, a sarcastic womaniser, a cantankerous old geezer, a naïve young fiancé and a snooty businessman, the outings are bound to be lively - and full of criticism, bickering, dirty tricks and chaos! Starring Martin Clunes as Clive, the "Matey-Boys" cross the English Channel to stock up on cheap booze, but their journey to a French hypermarket hits stormy waters, turning a simple shopping expedition into a bumbling, comic nightmare.
Anna is stuck: she’s approaching 30 and has just moved back to her rural home-town, and into a shed in her mother’s backyard. She spends her time working a menial job at a local boating center and hides in the depths of her imagination, making movies with her thumbs. Irritated by her childish behavior, Anna's mother insists that she move out of her shed and on with her life. When a troubled young boy starts hanging around, the two form an unlikely bond. Through their strange yet mutually beneficial friendship, Anna slowly begins to confront her perpetual state of arrested development.
A tragic comedy centered on the HR manager of Israel's largest industrial bakery, who sets out to save the reputation of his business and prevent the publication of a defamatory article.
Shakespeare's comedy about two couples in love with the wrong partners, and how they are finally brought together rightly, thanks in part to the bungling work of Puck. It is completely in the language of the Bard, with Pfeiffer as the Fairy Queen and Kline as the one turned into her evening's lover with donkey ears.

© Valossa 2015–2024