An 18th century Swedish nobleman rides a horse into a bar.
Thus started no joke anyone ever heard or told. But it’s a high point in Roy Andersson’s “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence,” so stay with me.
The horseman, an officer, waves his sword about and chases out the female Swedish barflies. “No women in the establishment!” The king, Karl XII, is coming.
And so he (Viktor Gyllenberg) does, a callow strawberry blond leading his army to teach those Russians a lesson.
Karl is thirsty. His aides order him water. Karl is drawn to the “young and handsome” bartender, and his aides proposition the guy for him.
All this before Karl rides off to the battle that ended the Swedish empire.
Andersson’s third film in an absurdist trilogy (“Songs from the Second Floor” and “You, the Living”) about the human condition is a reminder that no, Sweden isn’t known for comedies — on the big screen or the small one, or on the stage. And there’s a reason for that.
“Pigeon” is a series of bleak black-out sketches, little human scenes in bars, bus stops and shops. They’re linked, sort of, by these two frustrated novelty toy salesmen, Jonathan and Sam (Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom). They’re having a hard time moving their joke junk, a “laughing bag” and vampire teeth, “extra long” wares.
The players in these Swedish-language (with subtitles) playlets are often in heavy, pale makeup, the settings spare and bleak.
The insights into the human condition are obscure and thin, though the absurdism is as offbeat as anything in “Waiting for Godot” or “Six Characters in Search of an Author.”
This “Pigeon” is quite unlike anything you’ll see on the screen this year. But beware of any advertising that labels Andersson “wacky” and this a comedy. Even by deadpan Swedish standards, this is pretty dry. And saying “The Emperor Andersson has no clothes” is just rubbing Sweden’s nose in it.
