The Swedish film director Roy Andersson uses his camera like a Medusa in reverse. Every character is made of stone until his gaze animates the steadied, careful composition he’s assembled inside the frame.
In his latest film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014), he arranges his scenes the way a painter does. His lighting, set, makeup and costume designs all borrow color palettes from artists like Balthus and Lucian Freud. And, at the same time, Andersson shares their sense of damaged humanism, inexplicably managing to create tableaux vivants in which every person appears to be psychologically fragile or incomplete.
Under a constant wash of sunlight that’s turned a shade of hospital green, something prevents Pigeon, and all of Andersson’s oeuvre, from becoming studies in anomie and despair. At first glance, there’s a caustic comic sensibility conveyed in the way the actors deliver their few, lingering lines. Even if you don’t speak Swedish, this errant way of speaking asserts itself on the English or American ear. You can easily recognize the risk an open mouth takes as it cracks the vast, frozen pause of an awkward conversation.
In this largely narrative-free film, there are two recurring characters: a couple of downtrodden traveling salesmen who carry their briefcases as if they were anvils. When asked by potential customers about their wares, this is their unexpected reply: “We’re in the entertainment industry. We want people to have fun.”