Interview with director Roy Andersson on the tragic comedy A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron, 2014). We spoke with him at the Venice film festival 2015. www.cinema.nl
I love Roy Andersson. I think he’s our Fellini or Bunuel, but that’s only an estimate. He's a bit like Kafka too, and maybe Beckett. They all love jokes and absurdity and play. Yes, there is philosophy. Mr Andersson makes “art films,” but he also made commercials (must’ve made him some $, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent it all on his very uncommercial films), but he’s mostly a maker of comedies, somewhat like Aki Kaurismaki, his younger Northern European director. Anyway, he’s a treasure, precious. He’s nearing 80, and I heard he’s not going to make any more movies, but I hope he does. We need him! I need him!
Bingo123 Agreed. I was lucky in that, just before I saw The Bicycle Thief, I was at an Italian place what all these black and white photos on the wall of people wearing massive amounts of pasta where from or about. Someone said they where post-war comedies. I did some internet digging while waiting for my delivery, and found out how Italians were so very, very poor after the war that even the fantasy of gorging on a cheap food like pasta was enough to put people in a good mood. That same week we decided to watch the bicycle thief, back when Netflix had lots of classic films, and it made me appreciate how the makers of the bicycle thief must have been living that experience of poverty, and how they dared to produce something that wasn’t escapist at a time when people very much wanted escapism. You can see the lack of funds on the low quality of the film stock, and the 30s era sound quality. It was a very profound experience
Hello Dinda, he is speaking of Peter Bruegel the Elder, he is commonly known for his depictions of rural life in the Duchy of Brabant (Netherlands and Flanders) in the 16th century. (look at Wikipedia :-). He is a painter whose paintings show a lot of depth (spatially seen) and many details that only become apparent to the viewer after a close look and tell corresponding "stories". Look at the pictures - very interesting. :-) best regards Dierk
@@tvdierk Thank you so much this is really helpful! I can't catch what he said and there is no subtitle available and I really wanted to see the painting :')
@@tvdierk Goddamn, just by reading your description, I automatically knew who you were talking about. I thought of that scene in Solaris, where the girl is looking at the painting and gets lost in all the stories drawn into it.
@@Guppyta16 This painting is also used in Abbas Kiarostami's movie 24 frames. There's a whole sequence with motion added to this painting, you might want to check it.
