Un pigeon perché sur une branche philosophait sur l'existence

Roy Andersson sits on a branch and looks at us: this is how we can summarize the film in one sentence. The movie is amusing, a sublime collection of "paintings" where the director cleverly moves from common situations (a mother enjoying his baby in a park) to the most absurd ones (King Charles XII having a mineral water in a bar before a battle). The viewer shall not struggle to find a standard, linear plot but, through putting together, one by one, all these paintings, she/he will have a reliable picture of human beings. Death, friendship, money, exploitation of people and animals: you find them all in Andersson's pigeon. Characters are mainly old, corpulent, pale, slow-moving but depicted in magnificent way and extremely real. The two salespeople involved in the entertainment business stand out: seeking debtors while not being themselves able to fulfill their obligations, they eventually realize that their friendship is the thing that really matters. Songs also play an important role in the movie (Lilla vackra Anna, above all) and they will stick in audience's head for a while after the viewing. At the end of his trilogy on human being, we can in fact say that the director has a positive message for us: Wednesday will come again and Roy Andersson is happy to see that we are doing fine.