"Welcome to the commentary track for A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence." "I'm joined by the filmmaker" " Roy Andersson." "Thank you." "I have to say that this first scene reminded me of my school field trips to the Natural History Museum in Gothenburg, with its famous whale." "Do you also have those memories?" "Oh yes, they are indelible." "The whale in Gothenburg..." "And the elephant." "You also had these Siamese twins in a glass jar." "An entire cabinet with all kinds of obscure stuff." "They actually had a cafeteria inside the whale." "I've been there." "I'm a bit younger than you, but I've been there." "It's only open on election day." "We don't have a whale here, but we have a pigeon that's reflecting..." "I want to ask about the title." "We have to explain that." "I've said it before." "I was inspired by a painting by Bruegel." "He was a Flemish painter in the 16th or 177th century." "He painted peasant life in Flanders during that time." "There's this one painting where a group of hunters are returning from a hunt, having searched for game." "They return home, having failed." "They get back to their village and up in the trees, there are these birds." "Not pigeons, but birds observing what the village people are doing." "I thought it was amazing." "They're not pigeons, but rather corvids." "But that doesn't matter." "There are birds in the trees, looking down on people returning from a failed hunt." "You see people preparing things." "It looks like it's springtime and they're preparing for winter." "Flemish peasant life, precisely painted by Bruegel." "It doesn't say "about the difficulty of being human", just "about being human", but you've often made it seem like it's difficult to be human." "Yeah..." "I actually had an actor say the line:" ""It's not easy being human." I'll stick to that." "It's not easy being human." "But not difficult, either?" "If you try to weigh what's difficult against what's easy," "I think the difficulties pose the heaviest burden." "There are fewer easy moments than difficult moments, unfortunately." "This feels almost like a pre-movie in the movie." "You have these three scenes about death." "ls that something you think more and more about as you grow older?" "Do you contemplate death?" "Yes, to be honest, I'm starting to think about it, more than before." "It's not something you think about when you're younger." "But it's creeping ever closer now." "There's this poem, I think by Birger Sjoberg." ""You've come at last, the minute of death."" "That minute is getting closer." "But it doesn't scare me anymore." "If you've lived a reasonably full life, you should be grateful for that." "I'm not afraid of leaving this life." "It could be very dull in the long run." "Who wants to live forever?" "Freddie Mercury sang that." "I've even had this notion that the worst punishment would be to live forever." "It may sound harsh, but living forever is about the worst thing imaginable." "Well..." "Tell me..." "It sounds absurd, but it's true." "There's something familiar here, looking at your amazing sceneries and the sometimes pale people." "These ones aren't all that pale, but this is a scene that seems very familiar." "And..." "There's something here..." "I don't know if it's sibling rivalry." "You also get a sense of greed here." "ls this something you've experienced yourself?" "Yeah..." "A family member is ill and you're coming to visit." "I don't know if it's particularly Swedish." "I hope it's universal, visiting a family member close to death." "The mother of these three siblings is close to death." "She got the daughter to bring her purse, which contains jewelry and some..." "Jewelry..." "And money." "It's not like the brothers are jealous of their sister." "They're afraid the staff will steal things." ""We can't leave this here." "It's SEK 770,000 in an envelope."" "Cash from selling her car." "Then there are some cuff links and gold buttons." "It's mainly that they're suspicious of the staff." "They're not squabbling over the valuables in the purse, but I like this scene..." "It's one of the few scenes that needed a re-shoot." "It didn't turn out right, but now it's great." "I was thinking..." "You often do re-shoots, you're a perfectionist and all that." "It's often the little things that make you say: "No good, let's do it again"." "What can make me unhappy is often the timing, when you get the lines at the wrong time." "They're really into the scene here, and that's when you get the lines right." "If not, you can get it all wrong." "The kind of humor you have in this somewhat grotesque scene really depends on the timing being right." "I love this." ""Mom, you'll also get into heaven." "You've been nice, just like Dad."" ""He's waiting for you there." I think the lines are amazing." "Then there's this almost bizarre..." "That line is every bit as good as Beckett." ""He's waiting for you."" "It's not how it works." "You'll get new jewelry in heaven." "You can't take these with you!" "It doesn't work like that!" "Amazing lines." "I'm sorry about praising myself." "This scene..." "When I watched it at a press showing here in Sweden, it really brought out laughter." "How do you come up with a scene like this?" "A man on a ferry has bought a shrimp sandwich and a beer." "Then he has a heart attack and dies." "And the woman says: "What do we do with this?" "It's already paid for."" "How did you think...?" "Do you remember this?" "How do you come up with your tableaux?" "Where do you get things from?" "I don't really know." "I can only say that it's..." ""He's already paid," like that's a problem." ""Someone already paid for this, what do we do with it now?"" "I really love the awkwardness in life." "People's awkwardness." "I don't know if it's typical of Gothenburg, but the word "awkward" has a very clear meaning there." "It's exactly what I wrote here - "awkwardness"." "I love how it's so very human to be awkward. "What do we do now?"" "Then we have the man who gladly takes the beer." "It's a reflection of just how greedy Swedes are." "Swedes have a burning desire to drink alcohol." "A bonus in life." "Exactly." "No Swede will pass on the chance of getting a beer." "For free!" "I want to ask about the direction." "I remember the lady-sawed-in-half scene in Songs." "How do you handle your background actors?" "How do you control a large scene like this?" "As the director, it's my job to make everyone feel safe." "I think they do." "They trust me." "It's my job to make them trust me." "I want the best possible result for everyone and a perfect scene." "I feel like I have the trust of everyone in the background." "We try to make it as good as possible, and everyone gets it right." "It's mainly about watching quietly and not letting their eyes wander." "Exactly, and if it's wrong, we'll do it again, until we get it right." "This is also great..." "There are several recurring characters in the movie." "This is one of the saddest." "I think this is an amazing depiction of longing for sexual intimacy." "There's also an element of grief here." "That's true, and I thought it was..." "I really liked how we made room for female desires in the movie, more than you're used to seeing." "It could very well have been a male dance instructor fondling the female dancers." "Here we have a woman getting frisky." "I think it's great." "You also have the drama of the dance, adding a charged atmosphere." "Was that a given or did it suddenly come to you?" ""Now I know." "I'll make it a flamenco lesson."" "No, the flamenco lesson has been in my thoughts ever since a visit to La Rochelle in France for the premiere of Songs from the Second Floor." "I went to La Rochelle for a festival there." "I went out at night and happened to overhear a flamenco rehearsal." "I heard the instructor demonstrating the steps." "Then the group would repeat the steps." "I thought it was really beautiful, that humans can come up with dance steps and dance routines." "It really adds to the richness of life." "Flamenco..." "It's amazing." "So these are people learning flamenco?" "Yes, they're learning flamenco." "The fact..." "It's really lovely." "She's really an actor, not a flamenco instructor or dancer, but she learned flamenco for this role, and she was great." "And he's now a principal dancer at the Opera, and even a principal dancer at the Bolshoi in Moscow." "He's actually one of Europe's foremost dancers." "It's great having gotten someone before their career really took off." "It's great, and I'm very happy with the scenery." "Did you build it here?" "Yes, we built everything here." "People should really listen to your earlier commentary tracks, but how long did it take to build this room?" "It took about two-three weeks." "We often rehearse before the scenery is done, with the basic idea." "Then we build it and find the actors." "Then we rehearse, film it and tear it down." "It takes about..." "On average, it's one month per scene." "One month per scene?" "Yes." "This took maybe three weeks, but other scenes took over a month." "This is nice." "Yes, amazing." "This scene ties things together, he's coming out here." "Here we hear the key line in this movie." "We hear it the first time in this scene and it's great to hear..." "In You, the Living, it was "Tomorrow is a new day", something that is both promising and almost terrifying." "Here it's:" ""Nice to hear you're doing well."" "Where does that come from?" "Oh god...it's about being human..." "You go through life not thinking about how much time you have left." "Life is full of life and vitality, and a death struggle at the end." "I think it's just so beautiful..." "As long as you live, you worry about family members' health..." "Well-being." "Yeah, well-being." ""Nice to hear you're doing well." I've said it countless times myself and I've heard it from my own family." "Your kids can be halfway around the world and you talk on the phone:" ""Nice to hear you're doing well."" "ls it a line that eventually loses its meaning and worth?" "Yeah..." "It's pretty much like "Hello" or "How are you?"" "Those are also lines that have been watered-down, but there's still some kind of substance to it." ""Nice to hear you're doing well." I think it's a beautiful line." "It's a line about caring." "And it shouldn't be abused?" "No, but it's okay to say it." "I'm surprised that people really took it to heart, even in other countries, like France and Italy." ""What's up with the line:" "'Nice to hear you're doing well'?"" "I didn't really get what was remarkable about it." "It's like the most normal line in the world." "It's just as normal as "Hello" or "Goodbye"." "It's about saying the lines in these pictures." "It's the tension between the visual moment when it's said and having it said that makes this a quality movie." "Some people may not get it." "It's about saying the lines with these pictures." "You usually say lines like that in completely different settings." "That's the key to this movie." "You usually have sparse dialogue, where every word is weighed carefully." "It sounds like a cliché, but it's true." "You can't miss a single sentence." "Of course." "How are you?" "I shouldn't complain." "Some people have it worse." "That's true." "Moving on, this is the first time we meet this duo..." "They remind me a bit of the Waiting for Godot duo." "That's right, they're a Godot duo." "They're like Sancho Panza or Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy." "One is from "whine country" - around Örebro." "Nobody really gets this." "It's not until afterwards you realize this scene is special." "But having dialogue behind the pillar..." "Yeah." "This set is wonderfully nice." "It's also in the later musical scene." "Let's talk about this duo, your main characters." "Have you worked with these before?" "They were also in You, the Living." "They had very small roles, almost like extras." "I thought they were great and would really work here, like a Laurel and Hardy duo." "Holger is sitting closest to us." "He's the soft one and cries a lot." "The other one is a tougher character." "You could say that I stole or borrowed from Laurel and Hardy, or even from Beckett, Waiting for Godot." "In Waiting for Godot," "Beckett's characters talk nonsense for three hours and every bit of it is interesting." "Here they're also talking nonsense." "Nothing important is said." "We do get a lot of the whiny character and he's a very pitiful man." "This is also built here, right?" "Yes." "It's amazing." "Uncle Onetooth." "Here's a..." "We talked about this." "This military man..." "He's also unloved and someone who doesn't..." "It reminds me of Giliap." "Oh yes." "The man in Giliap having lunch, not wanting any calls." "ls it about human loneliness?" "Of course." "ls it about not being wanted by anyone?" "How do we put it?" "It's about human loneliness, of course." "He's incredibly lonely, just like Captain Simonsson in Gillap." "That's also a character that's..." "It's about human loneliness." "ls it important that he's a military man?" "Yes, it's important." "Wearing a uniform makes people feel safe." "They feel like they belong in society." "They're not left out on their own." "When you're in uniform, you belong to something." "But he still can't keep track of his meetings, even though he's one of the people in charge of Sweden's defenses." "Still, he can't keep track of his lunch meetings." "It's important to show that." "It's how it is." "We have a very sloppy attitude when it comes to things like defense." "People expect perfection, but it's not at all like that." "And in the restaurant, we can see the flamenco couple." "It's also exciting." "Was it something that just came to you?" "This scene is actually different from all the other scenes." "It's the result of illness." "One of the two salesmen took ill, so we couldn't do the scene with him in this setting." "I had to change the script a bit." "It's possible that the changes made the movie a bit watered-down, but I saved the day by adding this dialogue and this situation." "But it wasn't planned from the start." "I'm truly sorry if this causes problems for you." "I really don't want that." "Thank you." "What's that like for you, having to disturb your circles?" "Did it make you worried?" "You just can't lose track of your concepts or lose focus." "You need a plan B." "Yes, and intensity..." "Yeah..." "It was a troublesome situation, but I think it turned out well." "Here's our duo." "They're not exactly jolly, yet they peddle novelty items." "Again, it's like having your laughter getting stuck in your throat." "Here he's getting water to wash down a headache pill, just as they're there to peddle novelty items." "They're in the position of trying to sell things." "He has the upper hand and they have to accept what he does." "It's the best part of this scene, when they're waiting for him to wash down his headache pill." "Then there's this wonderful..." "They seem to carry the world on their shoulders, but they say:" ""We want to help people have a good time."" "It's just a sales pitch." "I don't know if they believe it themselves." "You say that to sell your products." "These are two individuals who live in a flop house in Gothenburg." "That's what I had in mind for this situation." "A flop house in Gothenburg." "They're either early retirees, divorced or have drinking problems." "Lonely, they only have each other." "They each have a room." "There were plenty of places like that all over Sweden." "They have a small pension, can barely live on it and try to do some business." "Their idea is to sell novelty items." "It's pretty good business if you don't have any resources." "It's cheap to get into the business since novelty items don't cost much." "It's a pretty safe business." "You can earn enough to get by." "Contrast their looks with them saying:" ""It's a great party gag."" "They just stand there..." "looking incredibly pathetic." "Yeah, but..." "People look at them and call them pathetic, but they forget to look at themselves." "We could be just as pathetic all the time." "We try to..." "Yeah..." "No, it's..." "What are you trying to achieve with this movie?" "I get that it's a comment about what it means to be human, but... ls it also meant to make us feel like we have to shape up?" "Well, it's partly that..." "It could also raise the question of why one should shape up at all." "Life is already so terribly rich and grand..." "It's what is so beautiful about artistic expressions." "They're constantly pointing out our ambitions, our attempts to achieve happiness and just to survive." "It's amazing to watch these ambitions through art, and even failures." "It's usually about attempts to achieve happiness, but failures are also very prevalent in art." "But this thing about being human..." "The history of art is rife with that topic." "It's about time that we get to show these kinds of simple situations in a movie, about what it's like to be human." "He's hard of hearing and wants another drink." "Why can't we have that in movies?" "It's beautiful." "She's polite and decent and raises her voice to make herself understood." "She also explains to some other customer:" ""He has trouble hearing now." "He's been coming here for close to 100 years."" "Then we have someone in the back saying:" ""What would life be like without a drink?" "Or two," someone says." ""I don't even want to think about it."" "It's really nice..." "This is like Bruegel." "You depict social life." "Here it's Sweden in the 1920s, and it's similar to Bruegel's paintings from the 16th century, when he depicted peasant life." "It inspired me to make this movie." "Now we're moving on to 1943." "This is an amazing musical scene." "I think so, too." "It's outstanding." "We also have this oldie about the price of a drink." "Yes, I'm happy with it." "It must have taken an incredible amount of work." "Yes, but I was really inspired and this scene didn't seem like a chore." "It went pretty much on autopilot." "1943 is the year I was born." "It was in the middle of the war." "Right." "It was actually..." "My dad was proud that I was born in 1943." "That's when the Germans lost the battle of Stalingrad." "So...1943" " Stalingrad." "It was a last hoorah for those who rooted for the Germans." "In 1943, a lot of sailors and infantrymen would come to this bar." "They didn't have much money, but according to legend, they could get a drink for a kiss." "I think it's embellished, it probably wasn't that simple." "But..." "Lame Lotta, who ran this bar, it's said that she would trade a drink for a kiss." "Maybe not just a kiss, maybe more than that." "She's really great here." "She's an opera singer and can really sing." "She...what can I say?" "She carries this scene." "Wonderful drama in the way she acts." "And the entire scenery..." "I'm very proud of this scene." "It's very appreciated abroad, even if people can't understand the lyrics." "People from other countries still find it fascinating." "I was thinking about the man in the foreground." "He's very present and your eyes are drawn to him." "Right, but he doesn't serve much of a function, other than just sitting there as one of the customers." "There's nothing really special about his character." "A lot of people think otherwise, but it wasn't the idea." "He steals a lot of focus." "You need someone in the room to focus on." "You're always very thorough with compositions." "He's there to add balance." "Absolutely." "Then we have the people in the window." "You often had that in your old commercials." "Just like us, they're watching what's going on." "You often include that, like one of your trademarks." "Ove?" "This scene is really nice." "Can we have sound?" "With kisses are we going to pay at Lame Lotta's bar in Gothenburg" "With kisses are we going to pay" "With kisses are we going to pay" "With kisses are we going to pay at Lame Lotta's bar in Gothenburg" "Then there's this almost melancholic..." "He's going home." "Yes." "All alone." "And he needs his coat." "This reminds me of Gothenburg growing up." "I remember the beer halls, like Kafé Japan." "I grew up with those and you must remember them." "Weren't those beer halls typical of Gothenburg?" "You had those everywhere." "I think they only sold pilsner." "You had tile floors and men would sit there wearing jackets, sometimes wearing a cap, drinking pilsner." "There was hardly any alcohol in it, or?" "There wasn't a lot of alcohol content in that beer." "It's amazing, on the South Side of Stockholm, two women in their 60s had one of these cafés." "They sold alcohol under the counter there." "They got caught when they were around 60 or 770 years old, but they'd been doing it for many years." "I really like that." "It's legal now, but back then it wasn't." "I was thinking, pastiness." "ls that typical of Swedes?" "You travel a lot with your films." "You have some kind of pasty boredom in this apartment kitchen." "Do you see something beautiful here?" "I do." "I don't think they're..." "The pastiness is true." "But I don't think it's all that bad here." "They're just very..." "They're two survivors who have to suffer through life a few more years." "And they have kids or..." "I find this interesting." "There's an almost black and white tone in most scenes." "No paintings on the walls and it's all gray and white..." "Then you have these short..." "Like the light at the end of a tunnel." "You have these girls..." "It feels like a different color scheme and two young girls with their lives in front of them are doing what I did, what my kids did and what other people's kids will do." "I think my movies are life-affirming, even if you find them pitch-black." "I'll try to make them a bit less pitch-black." "I really love this." "There's also a later scene, and it's a nice change." "Colorful and lively in the middle of all the dark stuff." "You were surprised when I told you, but I see this as the darkest part of the trilogy." "This scene?" "Pigeon." "This is also a very sad scene." "Oh yes." "Our duo is trying to collect money." "She's sobbing, the child is playing and the man is hiding." "Yeah..." "Yes, it's sad, but I've also seen it as comical." "But..." "You insert comedy in this, but the laughter gets stuck in your throat and you recognize that it's serious." "So you don't think...?" "Do you think of Pigeon as being like the other two," "Living and Songs...?" "You don't see this as being darker?" "No, I don't think so." "For me, this scene..." "One of the reasons for this scene is to have him hide under a blanket." ""I don't have any money." "I don't have any money."" "It's a recurring theme in a lot of my movies, including this one." ""I don't have any money." Of course it's funny that he can't pay." "And he hides under a blanket." "Yes, it's very funny." "But I still feel like there's a darker vein that permeates Pigeon, the entire movie." "That's interesting." "I didn't feel that way, but I know that several people did." "They see it as darker than the others." "It also makes it very gripping and powerful." "Here I was thinking..." "What was it like to direct these children, like this girl?" "Was it hard to work with...?" "Children with Down syndrome are incredibly frank and honest." "It's just so pleasant and positive to be around them." "I've worked with these children, or a theater school in Årsta that worked with children with Down syndrome." "I've been in touch with this school for many years." "There was also a scene long ago, in a movie called Something Happened." "The theater pedagogue was incredibly sympathetic and helped us with that movie, back then." "Now we got in touch with that same group, and all the parents were okay with having their children in this scene." "We're very grateful for that." "No other children are as frank and positive as these children." "It's just amazing to be around them." "It flew home." "And then it flew home." "And directing this scene with these children...?" "We had to rehearse a lot with Vilma standing there." "She was very skeptical at first." "The children weren't meant to run up on stage, but we had to let it go." "What was that like for you?" "I was fine with it." "It feels very spontaneous." "Yes, and full of vitality." "One girl ran up and bowed." "We should be happy we got that." "Now it's time for a scene that is completely outstanding." "Yes..." "I don't know, it's really difficult to interpret..." "I was thinking like..." "It's like a bar in a Hopper..." "It's all dreary, lonely souls." "It feels a bit like Edward Hopper." "Yes." "The men come in here..." "The bartender is being very unpleasant towards our duo." "Then we get the rest, but I was thinking about this duo, our anti-heroes." "They're like some sorts of guides in a society with a lot of apathy and loveless people..." "They guide us through this." "Yes." "I think they guide us through something that's pretty normal." "It's not anything spectacular." "What's spectacular is what we get in a while here." "They're out peddling their products." "They're two losers." "They're early retirees or out of work." "They do this to supplement their pensions." "And to have something to do." "Right." "It could also be about overcoming boredom." "That, too." "Sure." "Their sales pitch is that they want to help people have a good time, but they're really just interested in selling." "How did you think of this scene?" "These are our guides through life." "Then you thought: "I know, let's bring in a Carolean on his horse."" "Yeah, but it's actually an old idea." "Look how nicely they enter the shot, like scouts." "They're great as scouts..." "They act just like scouts, riding in there." "Reconnoitering." "Just amazing." "You said it was an old idea?" "Yes, about an anachronism." "I wanted to bring something historical to our time." "Here it's Charles XII in our time." "Yeah..." "I can't say why I like it, but it was time to do it." "It's like I mentioned earlier, in the middle of the 80s," "I shied away from realism completely." "I found realistic stories completely uninteresting." "I enjoyed inserting dreams or anachronisms." "It's a total jumble, about what we know, how we live and our history." "All in one great jumble." "Here it's about the Swedish people's self-image." "We were a great power, Charles XII did stuff and there are poems about him." "But he was just a loser, really." "He destroyed what his predecessors had built, Charles X and Charles XI." "Sweden was a great power back then." "Then this fool came to power and destroyed it all." "No women on the premises!" "Here he ejects all the women." "I've gone through historical documents about this." "He was terrified of women." "He couldn't be in the same room as women, and he very much preferred..." "While campaigning, he would sleep in the same tents as his soldiers." "We don't know what that meant, but it's a fact." "There's really nothing weird about it, but it's been hushed up." "He's a symbol of a macho ideal, the warrior king." "That he would have bisexual or homosexual tendencies was something we didn't want to hear about..." "I shouldn't say "we", but Swedes..." "The Swedish elite didn't want to hear about it or acknowledge it." "He was supposed to be a macho king." "He's still a statue in Kungsträdgården, pointing east." ""Let's get the Russians."" "It's just so silly." "I think they should tear down that statue." "Oh wow..." "Let's return to this scene." "Was it difficult to do?" "You're using live horses and stuff here." "As a director and filmmaker, are you worried about things?" "Are there scenes which caused you to lose sleep?" "This was difficult." "I was really..." "I think I caught some virus from the horses." "We worked with the horses a long time and I had a cold during this entire part of the movie." "But I managed to get through it." "It was amazing." "You get used to it." "First you get used to having four or five horses." "Then you get used to twenty horses, or even a hundred horses." "Eventually, you get used to having a hundred soldiers as well." "Yes, then there's this..." "Your way of working is a return to old-school moviemaking, with a stationary camera..." "Here we see you moving it a bit." "The slots on the left disappear." "You have to get the timing just right." "It's a giant scene with horses and soldiers in the background." "And no special effects." "No." "It's all done live on camera and you have to get it right." "I don't want to disappoint you, but we did use a technology called green-screen." "We had about 24 horses to work with." "Here it looks like at least 124." "We were able to shuffle the 24 horses around and make the line longer." "It's like a loop." "Yes, and changed positions." "We were able to add another go-around." "People think we had the horses circle the camera, and that would be possible, but we would have needed ten more." "24 horses were enough, thanks to the green-screen technology." "We made it look good and I'm very happy with this." "It's a scene that you could put on YouTube and watch it separately." "It has such incredible impact." "Your Charles XII seems like a weak and boyish man." "How long did it take to find the right actor?" "He's part of a very famous theater or circus troupe." "It's called Cirkus Cirkor." "He's part of that troupe." "He's really a juggler." "He's not a professional actor, but a performer." "His specialty is juggling, and he's also an acrobat." "But he's also really good at..." "When you do things like that, you also learn to time your lines." "You don't want to work with "regular actors"." "It's not something I mind, but there might be 10,000 actors in Sweden out of ten million Swedes." "You have more to choose from in the general population." "I try to find people who I feel are authentic." "It's almost a pre-requisite for humor." "This scene may not be an example of that, but it's still my philosophy, that the authentic is very important." "I'm curious about this scene." "Did you feel like you wanted to see what you could do" "and test the limits as a director?" "Of course." "It must have been one of your most difficult scenes." "Yes, when you look at the direction work here," "I think it's pretty extraordinary." "It took a lot of work to get this scenery." "We had to rehearse and get the background right." "And even the prelude, before all the soldiers enter." "It was a monumental task and I'm happy we pulled it off." "Now we have the infantry and the pikemen with their pikes." "They sing this song..." "It's a really cool scene." "I'm very proud." "You couldn't do this scene here in your studio." "No, but we did rehearsals here with the scenery in the foreground, with the king at the bar counter." "We rehearsed that here in a primitive version of this set." "We rehearsed the pacing, the lines and decided who should portray Charles XII." "I think we tried seven or eight different Charles XII and went with this young guy from Cirkus Cirkor." "I had cast him earlier in a commercial." "Charles XII has a hundred thousand men as he marches off in smoke and macadam" "Here's another more colorful scene." "Yes." "It's like an interlude or some kind of transition before the rest about what it's like being human." "It's very bright and nice, a happy mother with her child." "Well, I..." "One defining characteristic of my movies and also my world-view is the people are terribly exposed in a harsh and brutal reality." "This mother and her child..." "But she does seem happy." "Yes, but you can tell that she's not an important person for those in power." "She's allowed to exist, but not take up space." "What makes her beautiful is that she's not very prominent." "This scene is closer to my world-view and my view of humanity than many of the other scenes." "The woman just sits there with her child and kisses its feet." "Now we're at the flop house and..." "This is...this man here..." "It makes you laugh, but it's also very sad." "They're looking for our duo here." "I'm really happy with this scenery, that we built this." "I grew up in downtown Gothenburg." "I lived in Nordstaden the first five years." "There's a flop house there that looks just like this one." "It's run by the Salvation Army." "My brother lived there for many years." "He had problems with drugs and alcohol." "He's dead now, but he used to live in a place like this." "I know this environment very well." "I think they're not allowed to drink alcohol here, but they live here and try to earn a little extra peddling novelty items." "The visitors here are demanding payment." "It's a woman who is aggressive and not very empathetic." "Her assistant is showing how much they owe, or who signed the contract." "This is a good scene." "Here we have real image depth." "They're standing in the window..." "The scene works on many levels." "They're in the hallway, which you can't see." "We get to see that later." "Then a man enters, with an accordion." "There he is." "I think this is a bit Russian." "This scene feels like Dostoyevsky." "I would be very happy if people could see my ambitions here." "It's a Dostoyevsky scene, with every nook of existence and every little part of what it is to be human." "You're poor and live in a flop house, getting a visit from mid-level collectors." "It makes you think of perpetrators and victims," "and being a victim of existence." "Oh yes." "Yes, it's harsh." "All the things I'm trying to tell here comes from growing up on Hisingen in Gothenburg." "Those two characters are straight from my childhood." "I grew up seeing a lot of people like them, losers." "They didn't know they were losers, but you could tell they weren't winners." "And unloved as well." "Yes, you could say that." "It's important to feel loved and needed." "Don't you agree?" "These are people who are neither, not based on what we see here." "This is unsentimental and crass." ""Go to sleep now." "You can't talk this loudly this late."" "But you still get to laugh at them." "Here's this man again..." "He's in uniform, he's important and he's missed his meetings." "This is great." "During this monologue, he keeps saying the word "naturally"." "Right." ""Naturally."" "Where did you get that?" "It's just so funny..." "He's someone who is totally lacking in confidence." "He sees himself as a loser from the very beginning." ""I'll try to do this, and of course it won't work."" "He can taste defeat from the very beginning." "It's like he's a victim of circumstance." "Nothing is his fault." "But still, don't forget that he's a lieutenant colonel." "He's one of the people in charge of Sweden's defenses, and he can't even keep track of his lunch meetings." "That's how it really is." "You manage to get humor out of this." "It's serious and tragic, but there's still humor." "And all the time, you're waiting for "naturally"." "The humor really comes from the two men listening, when they look at him." "That makes it funny." "Watch this..." "But it's also...yes...and these..." "We take a break from the movie magic here." "You have him talk into the camera, like the barber." "You use that trick here." "He switches between talking to the people there and into the camera." "It's like we're also there." "I'll use more of that in my next movie." "Naturally." ""Naturally."" "Are your characters lovable?" "This man, we understand what he's about to do." "They're pathetic or pitiful in a way." "More pitiful than lovable?" "There's a fine line there." "Yes, I think so." "It's true of us all." "We're all more pitiful than..." "Lovable." "We're a sad bunch, the lot of us." "One thing steals a lot of attention here, the painting." "Was it there from the start?" "We had it painted to go with the scene." "We wanted a specific motif in the background." "It's really a simplified Bruno Liljefors." "It emphasized the loneliness in that fancy office room." "Dark paneling on the walls." "And expensive books." "An expensive carpet and chairs." "Then you toss us over to this." "Yes." "And our "whiner"." "Yes." "And a battery-powered record player." "With speakers in the lid." "I remember those." "He's lost his spirit completely and the other one doesn't know how to act towards his old friend." "Yeah..." "This is just..." "You were surprised when I called the movie dark, but I'll say it again, Pigeon is darker than the other two movies." "You think so?" "And I like it." "I won't mention any names, but there are people close to me who hate it when everybody dies." "I love kitchen sink realism that you get in British movies." "I think you also like it when something gets to you." "This is what sticks." "It's okay to watch movies to be entertained and escape reality, but with a Roy Andersson movie, you get something to sink your teeth in and something that you carry with you." "Like I said, this is..." "You've worked on this trilogy for many years now." "Have you gotten a more cynical or darker view of existence?" "Not cynical, I hope." "I was wrong to say "cynical", but..." "I think that it's pretty empathetic, even though they're far from how we would like to be described." "He's listening to this song here." "Over and over again." "And the other one says: "This isn't normal." "I'm worried about you."" ""So am I," he says." "Well..." "Like I said, I grew up in this environment, with flop houses." "It wasn't flop houses then, but later on." "I know a great deal about people who live in those places." "They're often divorced, have drinking problems." "They've been in prison and are lonely." "Outsiders." "Oh yes." "And just like in Beckett's Waiting for Godot, they're also very similar to the rest of us." "They show the framework of our existence." "Most of what we talk about is just nonsense." "In Waiting for Godot, you have three hours of nonsense, and it never stops being interesting." "I wrote something here:" "Where are we headed?" "This might be timeless, but you're a keen observer of things." "When you watch the news and read about things here in Sweden, does it feel like we're on a downward trajectory?" "No, I just..." "Social safety nets dissolving." "I look at attitudes, how things are described and how people talk." "It's all lies." "There's no honesty anywhere, when we describe ourselves, how things should be, how to be happy and manage your bank accounts." "It's all a pipe dream that leads to unhappiness." "Here's a man who is doing some soul-searching, right?" "He could be around 770 and feels he's getting close to death." "He's been unhappy all his life and now he realizes it was because he was so stingy." "To me, this is a key line about our existence." "People are fixated on their own success and happiness, thinking it will make them happy, but it really leads to unhappiness." "That's what I tried to get out of this scene." "I really wanted to be a writer, a new Albert Camus." "The Strangeris an amazing novel, with a scene that takes place in Tangier, in Algeria." "He's standing in the window, looking out." "His mistress has just left and he can still smell her perfume." "He's looking out at the people in Tangier, or maybe Algiers." "That scene stuck with me when I read it." "This scene is an Albert Camus scene." "It didn't have a woman in the background, she had already left." "I had the woman stay and I think it's just as beautiful, or even more beautiful." "Suddenly, we get something that has a more colorful feel to it." "He looks thoughtful here, but these are two happy people." "Well, they're two physical people." "My philosophy of life is that physical intimacy is..." "What else is there, really?" "It's amazing to have that, and you need to nurture it." "Here our maniacs are returning." "ls this the hangover?" "Poor bastards, lured off to war." "It's often the case around the world." "Young men are lured by buzzwords, they'll be fighting for this or that." "Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's just bullshit." "But they still get people to these battlefields." "World War I was the worst one of all, when they were slaughtered by the thousands in Flanders and...yeah." "Now they're returning, and why is that?" "They went off to war in front of this bar, and we see them again." "It's a metaphor, an exaggeration." "It didn't happen like this." "Charles XII didn't return in the 20th century." "This is called an anachronism." "I was thinking about that famous painting, Charles XII's funeral transport." "I think this is just funny, depicting Sweden's history this way." "It's a bit troubling for students of history." ""My God, he didn't return from war at that time,"" ""in a modern bar, outside Sundbyberg."" "No, but it's about the Swedish mentality and self-image." "These scenes are about the Swedish self-image." "The Swedish Empire, Charles XII and Sweden as a great power." "Beating one's chest." "Oh yes." "Then there was defeat and shame." "What's amazing here is..." "In the first two movies, you didn't use this touch." "It's amazing how well it works." "We actually buy this." "This bar looks like something from the 50s or 60s, and here we have Charles XII." "It's just..." "Could you be sure this would work?" "I thought so, it works for me." "But I'm a bit disappointed that it didn't work for the people who give out Guldbagge Awards." "They couldn't see the quality in this." "I thought that was shockingly bad." "They didn't see the quality in this." "But still, you got the Golden Lion in Venice." "You felt certain you'd get it." "You knew it's a great movie." "I've been working with this for so many years." "I can see the quality in direction, art and images." "Without being conceited, I can see the quality in this." "It was a bit of a disappointment that the Guldbagge people didn't see it." "Does it sting?" "No, it was good in a way." "But they didn't even see the photo quality, not even that." "It's good that we can reveal their lack of competence." "It doesn't even matter." "We'll get enormous credit abroad for this movie." "How long did you work on the script?" "Are these ideas you had when making the other movies?" "Did you pull them out and tried to fit them in?" "Or are they from after You, the Living?" "Did you write these scenes after You, the Living, or is it older stuff?" "Most of it came later." "Some scenes go back in time." "There's a scene at the end, from the colonial period, when the British..." "We'll get to that." "But otherwise..." "No, I think it's mostly stuff from after You, the Living." "Here's another happy scene." "Yes." "A scene like this is clearly inspired by art history." "There was this French painter called Millet." "He depicted peasant life and he did a wonderful painting of a young peasant couple, taking a midday nap in the shadow of a haystack." "You can tell that it's really hot, so they have to nap in the shade." "It's so hot that the horses and donkeys in the background are suffering." "But the couple is in the shade." "van Gogh came about 50 or 770 years later." "He'd seen this painting and wanted to do one just like it." "He also painted a couple napping in the shadow of a haystack." "But van Gogh made them look ugly." "It's not beautiful people sleeping." "Their mouths are open..." "I really liked how van Gogh could see the beauty in the situation." "Young people napping in the shadow of a haystack." "What a beautiful motif." "You could ask all the potentates around the world, bank directors, billionaires, princes and presidents." "Can you imagine anything more beautiful than a couple napping in the shadow of a haystack?" "No, I don't think they can until it's too late." "I have to ask, where did you shoot this scene?" "We did it here in our studio." "And the train?" "We actually inserted it." "It's one of the few times where we used effects." "It's actually a model train..." "What do you call it?" "Märklin?" "Something like that." "So it's a model train that's been inserted later?" "You can do that with modern technology." "So you don't mind using that?" "Oh no." "I'm not orthodox in any way." "The movie feels very organic..." "Yeah, I think so, too." "I'm really happy we managed to get to train." "So it's all studio work, with this amazing depth." "And our duo continue their hopeless journey through life." "Yeah..." "This scene made me think of something." "I remember how you built an entire train platform and train cars just for a scene about a man who gets his finger caught in a door." "This time, you've built a kiosk and an open-air café just for a woman who has a pebble in her shoe." "Isn't that nice?" "It is nice." "I think so." "It's so nice." "Then you get humor here." "You fall in love with the girl trying to get rid of the pebble." "It's just so lovely." "You have this beautiful creature with something in her shoe." "He agrees with you..." "Yeah, it's great." "This couple has problems of their own." "I think they look like criminals." "That was the idea." "A criminal couple who are off in the middle of the day." "Yeah..." "We see them sitting here..." "Are we supposed to see them as lonely souls?" "Yes..." "What did I say earlier?" "Exposed to the universe." "You're exposed." "Very vulnerable." "Vulnerable, exposed and..." "So is there any hope?" "Yes, there is hope of being kind, friendly and empathetic for as long as you can, but there's no hope of a happy end." "None of us will get a happy end." "We're all headed for sad endings." "Either we die without knowing it or we die from illness." "That's not anything optimistic, but while we still have some life in us, we should try to be empathetic and kind." "If not, we'll end up like the man in the bar who said:" ""I've been stingy all my life." "That's why I'm so unhappy."" "Poor bastard, that he didn't realize it earlier." "He's a poor bastard." "There's no defending it, being totally unaware." "Here is an example of how you connect many of the scenes." "We remember the flamenco dancer from that short and powerful scene." "Here's another one." "He doesn't have any messages." "To us, it could just be:" ""Okay, nobody called."" "But it seems like a death blow for him, and for her as well." "She isn't wanted by anyone." "He walks around the corner here." "It was the same in the previous scene." "Incredible loneliness." "I wrote something here, how you depict big things using small things." "When you really understand what it is." "It's a great shot of the street, Ove." "Yes." "Here we are in the hallway." "This is just..." "It's the flop house." "Yeah." "I grew up with Laurel and Hardy." "Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel." "To me, they are the saddest characters I can think of, while still being hilarious to watch." "I've tried to be as funny as them." "It's hard to get to that level, but that's my inspiration, as well as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza." "Let's talk about Laurel and Hardy." "When I was young, it was just funny to watch them fall on their butts." "No..." "You see sadness there?" "Oh yes, even back then." "I thought they were very sad, while being funny." "I'm sorry, Jonathan." "Can you forgive me?" "Laurel, the one who cries all the time, he's lost." "But the fat one, Hardy..." "He's always trying to move up a notch in society." "He tries to please the upper and middle class, to climb the social ladder..." "Fiddling with his tie..." "Right." "He's a really sad character." "He's really nothing but sad." "These are your anti-heroes, or your heroes..." "That's right." "Did they turn out like you'd hoped?" "I think so." "Your sales duo?" "Yes." "The only problem was that the one we see here got injured." "We had to include that in the scenes, him having trouble walking." "It wasn't meant to be like that." "There's always someone laying down the law." "The voice of authority." "A reprimand." "It's a great word - reprimand." "In Songs, you also have a hallway scene with doors." "People looking out or looking in." "Isn't it quite depressing?" "Sure." "You had lights out at 10 or 11 p.m." "It's a flop house, not a proper hotel." "You have to toe the line." "I think they even serve breakfast." "I haven't lived in a place like this, but I had a brother who did." "Here's a self-confident man." "I feel kind today." "But he's also a loser." "I like how you have her make that clear." "Oh yes." "He doesn't have any authority with her." "Watch this..." "She sees him as a poor bastard." "She works there to earn a living, but she doesn't respect him at all." "Let's not forget..." "It's a great shot." "You have an amazing team..." "What a shot!" "They work on your movies." "Do you have a good working dialogue, so that you know when you're getting things right?" "Do you know anyway, or do you need to ask if it feels right?" "I have extremely close contact with the team." "They help me create these scenes." "I ask them about almost every detail." "It's a very collaborative effort, even if I'm ultimately responsible for the whole thing." "But I get a great deal of help from the team." "They're very good." "A lot of people reacted to this scene." "It's very unpleasant." "The monkey here, what's the story there?" "It's actually a robot." "One of the most expensive things we had, I think it was SEK 150,000." "So it was built for the movie?" "Yes." "But it was worth it." "I've spent a lot of time reading up on animal testing." "I did work on an AIDS film..." "That's right, the monkey actually made me think of that film." "That's why I know a lot about how animals have been used for testing." "It's a subject that I know a lot about." "This is a mild example of what's been done." "Humans are horrible when it comes to exploiting other creatures." "It said "Homo sapiens" there." "Now we get to this." "I have to ask about the technical aspect." "How did you get this incredible copper cylinder?" "You won't believe it, but it's actually life-size." "We made it life-size." "We did a model of it here in Stockholm." "The actual...what do you call it?" "The interior was made in Karlstad." "We had to ship it and finish it in Oslo." "There was an airplane hangar in Oslo, that was available that summer." "Norway helped finance the movie, so it was important that we spent some of the money in Norway." "That's why we did that scene in Norway, in Oslo, in the hangar that was available." "It was at Fornebu, which is closed now." "And that's where you filmed this, with this life-size copper cylinder." "But the background is actually a miniature set which was inserted into the background." "It's supposed to be a blend of African savanna and Scanian willows." "It's a purposeful blend, so you don't really know where it is." "What inspired you to make this incredible copper model?" "As far as the material," "I got that from Hieronymus Bosch and Bruegel." "They were Flemish painters in the 16th and 177th century." "They have all kinds of weird-looking instruments..." "Those trumpets..." "I got those from Hieronymus Bosch." "But the basic idea for doing this comes from the Assyrians..." "The Assyrian...what do you call it?" "The Assyrians had a period of greatness 500 years B.C., in Mesopotamia." "They were known for being cruel to vanquished enemies." "They would design these devices where they would torture vanquished enemies." "They would scream and the screams would be made into something else." "When someone cried out in pain, you could get the sound of a duck, and everyone would laugh at it." "There's another version that's almost worse." "In Sicily, about 500 A.D., a prince or king commissioned a "brazen bull"." "It's a life-size bull made from brass plate." "You would put a person inside the bull and light a fire underneath it." "Then the bull would..." "You could change out the mouthpiece, and either get beautiful music or the bellowing of a bull." "This is an example of human ingenuity, sadism, and lack of empathy throughout history." "I can still feel bad about this being done to people." "Here it says "Boliden"." "Why's that?" "Well, Boliden..." "It's a company that extracts precious metals from ore." "They've been doing it for many years." "Boliden got started when gold was discovered around Boliden." "It's grown to one of the world's richest companies." "They extract gold, silver and all kinds of minerals from Swedish ore." "Up until a few years ago, it was against the law to deposit the slag, the waste products, outdoors." "You had these enormous piles of toxic by-products, slag." "They had to either process it or ship it out." "Boliden's solution was to pay a Chilean company, that would ship it to Chile and dispose of it." "Once the Chilean company got paid, they closed the company in Chile and walked away from the problem." "As a result, you got these giant piles of slag outside a city in Chile." "The children there were fascinated by the material." "They would play in the material, which was softer than sand." "They ended up getting really sick." "They got life-long ailments from it." "The girls would become infertile or have deformed children." "800 children ended up being seriously affected." "The city in Chile thought that Boliden should help pay for the hospital care for the people who had been seriously injured." "But Boliden refused." "They said:" ""We sold it to the Chilean company."" ""They got paid and didn't meet their obligations." "We're not responsible."" ""Business is business, it's not our concern."" "I think that was incredibly cynical." "During those years, Boliden had yearly profits of at least SEK 1 billion." "They wouldn't even compensate the people who got hurt." "It's just so..." "It's a stain on Swedish businesses operating around the world." "It's a stain on humanity when you act like that." "They should be held accountable and be exposed." "It's not their logo, but their name." "It's actually not the company name, but the name of a place" " Boliden." "And it's actually one of our heroes having a nightmare." "Just like me, he feels bad about these things." "I feel bad about what has happened throughout history." "I feel what I call "historical guilt"." "This is an example of historical guilt." "I think the management of Boliden won't come to a happy end in life." "They have this hanging over them." "They deserve to be unhappy for the rest of their lives, until they make good on this." "It's harsh, but that's how it is." "We're getting towards the end and I'm curious about your trilogy." "What is it supposed to be, apart from a work of art?" "ls it also a wake-up call or just a reflection on human shortcomings and malice?" "I think that artistic expressions throughout art history are important in and of themselves." "They arouse respect for humanity, but you also have to point things out." "I think that art can't be completely apolitical." "We could see the bourgeoisie watching people getting cooked." "Oh yes." "Art can't separate itself from moral responsibility." "Oh no..." "Art is supposed to point out irresponsible behavior..." "It shouldn't hide things or cozy up to people." "I want art to clarify things." "It should open people's eyes to what's important, ugly, true or not true, immoral or moral." "Art can do that when it's honest and unveils the nakedness of man." "You can just look at..." "I'll use a crude example." "Mona Lisa, Rembrandt's Mona Lisa." "What's its function in art history?" "Well, it's about someone having painted this portrait so very carefully and beautifully." "It arouses respect for being human." "It's about how she's positioning her hands, her hairstyle, her eyes and facial expression." "It's just so..." "And you know that existence is fleeting, like her beauty that only lasts a few years." "It's so beautiful that it arouses respect for existence." "It's one of the most important functions of art, to arouse respect for humanity." "I know I've talked about this before when we've watched your movies, but Elmer Diktonius had his great saying:" ""If art should numb you, a blow to the head would be the best art."" "That's well said." "It is, right?" "Oh yes." "This made me think of John Lennon." "I know Dylan is your number 1, but it made me think of Lennon's wonderful lyrics:" ""Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."" "There's something to that." "It's really a contradiction..." ""Life is what happens to you while you're busy..."" "He's wondering what day it is and seems confused." "He's not on top of things, but life just moves on." "It just made me think of that Lennon quote." "Maybe I'm wrong, but I like..." "Ove, the picture looks really nice." "Ove?" "Did we have this picture quality before?" "I turned the lights down and it brought out the contrasts." "It looks great." "We've talked about buying a 4K projector, but this looks great as it is." "When it comes to John Lennon..." "I could quote a very important poem or phrase, which really applies to me." ""A working class hero is something to be."" "Yeah..." ""A working class hero is something to be."" "I think that's..." "I agree with him." "It felt a bit like..." "It's like the ending of the movie is..." "There's a bright spot and something to hope for." "I hope so." "They look lovely standing there." "They're just so lovely." "It's amazing." "Then we have this song, it's a rockabilly song." "ls it an old favorite of yours?" "Do you know what it is?" "It's almost a secret." "It's the closing music from Viridiana." "Buñuel's Viridiana." "It doesn't say that..." "I used it as an homage to Buñuel." "It's played in the bar before Charles XII enters, the same song." "It's an homage to Buñuel's Viridiana." "And it's an obscure rockabilly song." "From the 50s." "I can't remember the name, but it's not all that famous." "It works great here and it's amazing in Viridiana." "I have the box set at home." "You should watch it." "I've seen it, a long time ago." "Let's wrap this up." "This has been amazing." "We look forward to your next movie, which is in the works." "We can add that as a cliffhanger here." "Absolutely." "I'm excited to see it." "It should be more surprising than a cliffhanger." "It should be very, very surprising." "I think so." "It's been great." "Good enough, Ove?" "Yes."