The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The movie takes painstaking care to portray humanity at its worst. With thespian scenes, set camera and no movement, the unlucky viewer is led through a series of mostly disconnected tragedies of the mundane and less mundane life, with the actors generally mostly half-way to their grave both in agility and complexion. Lacking respect of death and the dying, death, greed, cruelty, slavery, torture, poverty, heart-break, loneliness, depression, suicide, war, grief. There is no character development, no hope, no love, no colour. In a regrettably dystopian image of a world, Andersson is treating the audience to misery and despair, without bothering with too much imagination. Attempts of understated comedian expression repeatedly fall flat. The end credits come as a relief from utter boredom.

A Monty Python movie, without any of the irony or the humor. Reading the subtitles in a British accent actually enhances the experience. I'm proud to say, I did just that. The colors of the film are washed out and ugly, and so are all of the characters. Love it or hate it, it's purely original.

"A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence" is a recent Swedish dark comedy drama from filmmaker Roy Andersson. It is the third film in a trilogy, and after having seen this masterpiece, I really, really do won't to experience the first two films of this trilogy. I've seen the trailers for the previous two film, and all three films seem to have the same style of filmmaking, and if you aren't into that style of filmmaking, you simply will not like the film, and I know that there are plenty of people that will HATE that style of filmmaking, which is perfectly understandable! The film is targeted at a specific audience, an audience that I seem to be a part of.The film's humor is greatly absurd and deadpan. The very opening of the film perfectly presents the films dark and strange sense of humor. It shows three different scenarios involving death, and finds the humor in all of them.While the film is hilarious, it still has a very emotional side to it. It perfectly balances comedy and drama in a pretty episodic format.There isn't much of a story. It follows two struggling salesmen as they try to sell products, running into many absurd events. It shows their many failures in both a dramatic and humorous light.Overall, this is an excellent film that many people won't really get into. If you watch the trailer, and think you won't like it, then just don't watch the movie!

The Swedish Movie "En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron" was shown in the US as "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014)" It was written and directed by Roy Andersson.We saw this movie, along with a friend, in the excellent Dryden Theatre of Eastman House in Rochester, NY. The staff person who introduced the film went on and on about what a genius Roy Andersson is, how lucky we are that the Dryden could bring it to Rochester, etc. etc. The IMDb rating was a very respectable 7.3. How could we go wrong?All three of us left the Dryden thinking, "Was he talking about the same movie we just saw"? It was called a black comedy. The only problem with that description is that the movie wasn't funny. It was disjointed, more or less random, with running jokes that also weren't funny. Two scenes at the end were pathological and disturbing. The two recurring characters--sort of a Laurel and Hardy pair--were depressed and depressing. And, just to turn the movie into a laugh riot, King Charles XII appears on his way to and from the terrible Swedish defeat at the Battle of Poldova.Be sure to miss this movie. If I had a choice between seeing it again and undergoing root canal work, I'm not sure what I'd do. Save yourself the agony. If you want to see a Swedish film, see "The Seventh Seal." See "The Emigrants." See anything, just not this movie.