Monday night was our second TIFF film of the season, a Swedish offering called A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence.

One word: weird.

Four words: weird with interesting bits

Apparently it’s the third film in a trilogy, though I don’t think it really made a difference whether you’d seen the others or not. Actually, if you’d seen the other two films, you might have known what to expect.

Either way, it was a very weird film with lots of long takes, very slow action, still cameras with flat colours and repetitive phrases, actions and themes. Overall it’s about humanity and how we should treat others the way we wish to be treated. There’s also a good point about the exploitation of others for our own enjoyment.

There were some beautiful scenes in it, and a few that were amusing because of their alienness. I did think, though, that after a while the repetition gets a bit tiring and you want something to happen or it all to be over. Perhaps that’s the intent and it’s another comment about life.

One of the most interesting and disturbing scenes was of British colonial forces marching a line of shackled Africans into a big drum that’s lying on its side. The drum has horns sticking out of it and spins once the soldiers light the fire beneath it. A beautiful sound starts to emanate out of it. After five minutes or so, the scene shifts to a bunch of decrepit old white people hobbling out onto the terrace to watch this spectacle. You watch them as they’re served champagne and it’s all very intense and unsettling.

After the film, the director, Roy Andersson, answered questions from the audience. I liked him. Even though English is not his first language, he was down to earth with his responses (he doesn’t like bright colours so he mutes them in his films) but there’s thought and empathy behind what he does. There were the usual sycophants and wankers in the audience, as there always are at these things. Following a suggestion from a friend, we’re now going to call them wankophants.

Three more TIFF films to go (plus Boyhood tomorrow night).