Filming Guilt about the Past through Anachronistic Aesthetics: Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

In Roy Andersson's En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (2014; A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, 2014), happiness is often on people's minds but rarely a part of their lives.¹ This is foregrounded in the film through several scenes that play on the same tragicomic scenario: A character talks to someone on the phone and says, "Vad roligt att höra att ni har det bra" (En duva satt 2014) ["I'm happy to hear you're doing fine" (Pigeon 2014)], but every time, the character has to repeat the line—presumably because the person at the other end of the line has not heard what has just been said.² Like many other moments in Pigeon, this scenario uses simple conversations in everyday life to touch on existential issues—in this case, the wish to be (or appear to be) happy. By repeating the line "I'm happy to hear you're doing fine," the film hints at how attempts at being happy on other people's behalf may fall on deaf ears—not so much because people ignore each other, but, rather, the impression we get is that although people try to care about others, they ultimately tend to care just a little more about themselves.

Happiness and the lack thereof is one of several existentialist themes explored in Pigeon, a film that is explicitly framed as dealing with the experience of "being human." After the opening credits, an inter-title reads "sista delen i en trilogi om att vara människa" (En duva satt 2014) ["the final part in a trilogy about being human" (Pigeon 2014)]. While the inter-title establishes the human condition as a central theme, Pigeon is also about Swedish and European societies in particular, and thus has a twofold emphasis: on a supposedly universal human experience and on a particular Swedish or European experience. In this sense, the film resembles the trilogy to which it belongs (the Living trilogy), whose first two installments are Sånger från andra våningen (2000; Songs from the Second Floor [2000]) and Du levande (2007; You, the Living [2000]). Still, Pigeon also breaks with the trilogy overall, since it seems to take a critical stance toward Swedish imperialism—a topic that, as Lindqvist notes, has been largely absent in Andersson's films (2010, 219–20).³ In its attempt to critique Sweden's imperial past, Pigeon is a noteworthy case within Swedish and Scandinavian cinema, where references to Swedish imperialism are few and far between.⁴ It is also a thought-provoking piece of filmmaking because of the particular way it represents history—that is, by deliberately using anachronisms that mix together and connect the past with the present.

This article analyzes Pigeon in light of what memory studies scholar Michael Rothberg (2009) calls "anachronistic aesthetics." I open my discussion by introducing the film and establishing its key narrative devices, themes, and reception. I then turn to this article's main question: What are the payoffs and drawbacks to using anachronisms to represent the past, including mass atrocities in the past?⁵ As I show, several scenes in Pigeon stand out as especially anachronistic, in the sense that they deliberately combine elements from the historical past (e.g., historical figures) with elements from the present. The film's anachronistic scenes depict the past as if coexisting with the present and create critical connections among contemporary Sweden and imperialism and slavery and global capitalism. As such, these scenes not only form a thought-provoking critique of Sweden but also illustrate how anachronistic aesthetics may have, as Rothberg suggests, a creative and subversive potential. On the other hand, viewers unfamiliar with Swedish history may not necessarily pick up on the film's critical references to Sweden. As I demonstrate, paratexts associated with the film, including interviews with Andersson and film reviews, guide potential viewers in how to recognize and interpret the historical allusions in Pigeon. Yet not all...