Habemus papam: pigeons supporting the new pope supporters

Title: Habemus Papam

Year:  2011

Director:    Nanni Moretti

Running time: 104 min.

Country: Italy

This film permits us to muse on the way of life of the pigeons in St. Peter's Square, a quite busy area (in term of pigeon activity) like the Piazza San Marco in Venice or Trafalgar Square, in London. Going back to the film, the cardinals are summoned to a conclave in Vatican city for electing a new pope. But this traditional process that has been followed for centuries takes a different path when the new elected pope is overwhelmed by the situation and feels reluctant to accept his duty. The film depicts how this situation is managed by the Vatican and the reasons of the Pope for rejecting his position.

This process produces great expectation and many people gather in St. Peter's Square waiting for receiving news about the events that are happening.

The Pope meets a therapist to analyze the source of the problem related to his withdraw decision

Some nuns are waiting with great expectation for news about the new Pope.
 Of course, there are pigeons around.

Alongside the people a group of pigeons roams around. A very kind support for the new Pope!

We can observe pigeons next to the people

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Habemus Papam. Starring moment: 0:39:44.
• Pigeon activity: The typical urban pigeons activity: roaming around, looking for food or any other curious artifact.
• Symbolism: None. They represent the typical pigeons in a city.
• Relevance: None. As far as I know, they are not able to influence in the Pope's election.
• Training level: None. They are not trained pigeons, but feral-urban ones.

Las brujas de Zugarramurdi: thiefs, witchery and pigeons

Title: Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (Witching & Bitching)

Year:  2013

Director:  Álex de la Iglesia

Running time: 112 min.

Country: Spain

The films of Álex de la Iglesia are always intense action-packed experiences with a strong dose of dark humour. I have to confess that I am a great fan of this director. It was a great pleasure to find pigeons in this one that portrays the difficult relationship between men and witches. The former being criminals escaping from a robbery, and the latter, witches that have planned to sacrifice the men by means of an ancient ritual.

What none of them could have foreseen was that love would blossom between one of the men and a witch. An intriguingly romantic topic, but that is unfortunately out of the scope of the PMDb.

Eva (played by Carolina Bang), is the witch that falls in love.

José (Hugo Silva) is her counterpart. 

In the middle of this outlandish story, near the film's climax there is a sexually charged scene between these two characters. The passionately kiss in a room of a semi-abandoned mansion that is also occupied by with pigeons (here we go). The birds, alarmed by the tension of the scene, fly away, with some of them clumsily winging their way into the two protagonists.

Love scene complemented by scared pigeons.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Las brujas de Zugarramurdi. Starring moments: 1:13:07
• Pigeon activity:  This film contains a single pigeon scene of scared pigeons that fly away from the two main characters. 
• Symbolism: None. There is no symbolism in this scene. The pigeons are used to demonstrate that the mansion where the witches live in is in a semi-abandoned state.  
• Relevance: Low. Although some of the pigeons hit the head of the protagonists and they attract the attention of Jose, Eva (see animation above) shakes him and is able to keep him focused on what she it talking about.  
• Training level: Low. In this scene the pigeons are thrown in a quite rude way. The movement of the pigeons when they hit the characters is quite artificial and directed. In some cases it seems that they used a pigeon cannon to propel our feathered friends, instead of a gentle human assistant. 

Hannibal: a pigeon choreography displaying the cannibal

Title: Hannibal

Year:  2001

Director:  Ridley Scott

Running time: 131 min.

Country: United States

This film represents a perfect example of mainstream film that leverages pigeons for multiple purposes (creating perturbing or pitiful feelings in the spectator) . The first pigeon appearance is in the main credits. Here, pigeons are shown in grey scale, recorded with low resolution by surveillance cameras. Here pigeons are shown as mysterious and slightly hideous creatures. In this scene we can see a close up of a pigeon and several shots of pigeons in parks (the reason the security cameras are recording pigeons is uncertain, maybe they were calibrated by a pigeon fancier).

In the main credits we can see a sinister pigeon with a defiant look... maybe it's a cannibal 

In the main credits there is a dark scene with a flock of pigeons gathered in a square

What is more clear is the reason for introducing pigeons in this point of the film: they were used to represent Hannibal Lecter. In the scene, a large flock of pigeons gathers and creats Hannibal's face. This image lasts for a very short time. It is both disturbing and quite an achievement to find a mixture of pigeons, pixel-art and cannibalism-exaltation in a single shot.

Hannibal's face created by a flock of pigeons

According to Wikipedia:  The tile sequence remained on Scott's mind and would eventually end up as the main title sequence. Livesey would gather footage of pigeons in an empty square in Florence early one morning which, in the final cut, would morph into the face of Hannibal Lecter. Scott believed it a good idea, as it fundamentally asked the question: 'Where is Hannibal Lecter?' Scott explains: "And of course this story tells it, with pigeons in the cobblestones of somewhere, where you wonder where that is ... and there he is... his face appears.". The titles are said to have been influenced by the film Seven.

Later, in the film, Hannibal tells a perturbing story about roller pigeons (pigeons with the ability to roll in the air) to justify how behavior can be controlled by genes. He mentions that there are two classes of roller pigeons, deep rollers and shallow rollers.  When two deep rollers are bred together, their offspring will roll to the ground and kill themselves. The scene that includes this conversation can be seen here. A curious story that is unclear whether true or false.

There is a counterpart to this scene related to one of the characters that rescues an injured pigeon from a road and tries to take care of it. This action clearly shows that he is a noble person. Although this is a secondary character, he provides a crucial hint to the research of the investigation into the case.

This man is putting his life in risk to save an injured pigeon

The rescued injured pigeon with a fellow pigeon that shows concern for health

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Hannibal. Starring moments: 0:3:40, 0:4:24, 0:24:30, 0:27:33, 0:29:03 (last three timestamps represent a pigeon hotspot).
• Pigeon activity:  This film contains several pigeon appearances. All of them are wild pigeons that roam, fly or lay in public areas.
• Symbolism: The first pigeon appearance (in the main credits) is full of symbolism. Both the intriguing representation of the pigeons as well the formation of Hannibal's face, create the impression that the dark shadow of Hannibal Lecter is so shape-shifting and ethereal that it can appear and disappear anywhere. 
• Relevance: Medium. Unfortunately the pigeon activity does not have a relevant impact on the film plot. However, they are the protagonists in the main credits and are mentioned by Hannibal Lecter.  
• Training level: Low. The pigeon appearances in the main credits are wild animals or CGI generated. The other one, that lays injured, does not perform any action and probably is a sedated animal or a dummy. 

Samba: unconfirmed pigeons in Paris.

Title: Samba

Year:  2014

Director:  Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano

Running time: 115 min.

Country: France

This film depicts the tough life of an illegal immigrant (Samba) in Paris, how he is forced to accept all kinds of jobs to survive in the city and how he falls in love with Alice (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Although we empathize with Samba, the reality is that we are only focused on pigeon appearances in the film, so we will skip describing his adventures. There are two scenes related to pigeons. The first one occurs when the police scramble onto some scaffolding to catch the immigrants, Samba and his friends escape running on the roofs of buildings. When Samba is leaving a roof hatch we can hear pigeons cooing and see a feather next to the window (red arrow in the screen shot). Of course, this does not count, it is a near miss.

A small feather (pointed at by the red arrow) next to Samba, the film's protagonist.

The second scene is more explicit: Samba is talking with his uncle, who is in depressed because he has lost his job.

In this picture we can see Samba's uncle's sadness.

Samba is trying to encourage him to start a new project and is getting dressed for a date with his girlfriend. In the background we can observe a tv playing a documentary and some birds (unconfirmed pigeons) flying way. We would have to find out the documentary's name to clearly discern where they are pigeons or other birds.

Samba is getting dressed. We can observe the tv on the right side of the screenshot. 

Here we can see the tv with more detail. Some unconfirmed pigeons appear. 

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Samba. Starring moment: 1:21:10 and 1:40:26
• Pigeon activity: A flock of unconfirmed pigeons fly away, probably scared by the camera. 
• Symbolism: None, they represent wild animals.
• Relevance: Low, they are part of a tv documentary that Samba's sad uncle is watching. It is not clear whether this documentary helps him to feel better. 
• Training level: None. They are wild animals. 

La casa de las palomas: the tragic ending of the pigeon inquisition

Title: La casa de las palomas

Year:  1972

Director:  Claudio Guerín

Running time: 90 min.

Country: Spain

A film entitled La casa de las palomas (The house of the pigeons) looks promising in terms of pigeon activity. After watching it, I have to confess that it was much more than I had expected. There are pigeons everywhere, outdoors, indoors, on the characters' heads an even within their minds. We are facing a pigeon-intensive film with feathered appearances of great symbolism and even horror.

This film presents a bizarre love triangle (between humans) in which we aren't particularly interested initially, given that we focus, as usual, on the pigeon appearances. However, in this film, the sexual conducts of the humans has a strong impact on the future (and tragic) actions related to the pigeons.

From my perspective, this film has some parallelism with Requiem for a dream. What at the beginning looks like a romantic film (in this context, with pigeons involved), later turns into a drama that leads to a pigeon apocalypse with several gory scenes (with pigeons as the tragic protagonists). Let's start from the beginning. Note: the following contains several spoilers about the film plot.

There is a man, that has a mistress who is the daughter of his would-be lover. They conduct their affair secretly in a house that belongs to a lady, who happens to be a pigeon fancier.

The lady pigeon fancier that lives in the house with one of the animals. Based on the subsequent actions taken by the birds, Torquemada (a famous Spanish inquisitor) could be a good name for the dove.

The pigeon lofts are in the roof of the house. It is interesting to highlight that all of them are doves. These animals, known for their purist symbolism really do turn out to be puritanical creatures that do not approve of the immoral relationship that is taking place in their abode (with the approval of their keeper).

It looks like a innocent dove, but do not be fooled, we are looking at a feathered inquisitor.

So, the doves decide to act, with all the possible enforcement measures that this creature is capable of. They focus on the mistress, maybe because she was weaker than the man, maybe because she was the female (in this case, we are also be talking about sexist birds).  Consequently, the first punishment action occurs in the pigeon loft, when the girl comes to visit the birds. Several doves attack her and she has to escape, just a little scared (of course, we are talking about doves, not Hitchcock's crows).

The mistress being attacked by the doves when she was visiting their loft.

The thing is that the doves and pigeons in this film are magical, and have the ability to appear supernaturally in the house. Knowing the intention of the birds, it doesn't bode well.

Doves and pigeons magically appear in the living room looking to deliver punishment.

Then, one an amazing sequence is displayed. We can see an eye-to-eye stare-off between the girl and the inquisitors. With a little  imagination we can see the look of judgement in the pigeon's glare.

Eye-to-eye stare-off between the protagonist and the inquisitor pigeons.

The punishment process continues. The girl faints and the the birds enter her mind by means of dreadful nightmares. The girl sees herself dead, surrounded by the doves.

Representation of a dead girl surrounded by the pigeons. At least in dreams, they have reached their goal.

Fortunately for the protagonist, there is an unexpected turn in the plot when a fan that was activated in the room got rid of the pigeons by cutting them with the blades. Amazingly, this romantic film turns into a gory massacre for the pigeons.

When the girl's lover comes in the room he finds a dead pigeon next to the door. He surprisingly finds all the doves dead and the girl saved. This is the end of the story: all the birds have been killed by the fan and the lovers reunite.

Tragic shot of a dead pigeon next to the room's door. 

The lovers finally reunite in a room filled with dead birds and avian blood everywhere. 

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: La casa de las palomas. Starring moment: many of them, 0:41:37, 0:49:43, 1:26:00
• Pigeon activity: There is plenty of pigeon activity. In this film we can find normal pigeons in many locations: in the loft, rooms, on furniture, even on the characters. They exhibit an aggressive behaviour against the girl. The doves in the film look lovely, but they are actually evil and full of resentment. They are even worse than the Pigeons from Hell. 
• Symbolism: Very high. The film uses doves to reflect a pure (or puritan) moral opposed to the liberal conduct of the film's protagonist. In a different way from the conventional symbol of pigeons (peace, fraternity, ...) these indignant animal decide to take action and punish and kill the protagonist. 
• Relevance: Very high. Pigeons are responsible for tormenting the protagonist in many ways, including physical action and physiological torture that almost took the life of the protagonist.  
• Training level: Very high. The doves act very well in this film. There are no special effects, thus all the performances are real and feel very realistic taking into account the complexity of the storyline. 

Mr Nobody: pigeon superstition

Title: Mr. Nobody
Year: 2009
Director: Jaco Van Dormael
Running time: 133 min.
Country: Belgium




It is very interesting to find a non-pigeon-oriented film (I mean, not a documentary about pigeons) where the main credits are exclusively devoted to a beautiful dove. And of top of that, to illustrate how clever the animal is at solving complex tasks.  Indirectly, this scene also introduces us to "pigeon superstitious animal behaviour".

In the scene we can see how a dove is trying to catch a piece of food. Unfortunately, the tasty meal is too high and the bird cannot reach it.

Oops!!! The pigeon realises that the food is too high.

The suspense level dramatically increases when the dove notices the existence of a pedestal than can be used to reach a higher position but it is too far away from the food.

However, the dove is able to drag it using its beak, and finally, in a quite surprising way, leverages it to reach the tasty meal. From the bird's perspective, this is a happy end to the story.

The pigeon is dragging the pedestal

And finally gets the food

If this scene was not enough birdy propaganda, the film producers use additional time in the film's credits to  show more experiments (in black and white) showcasing pigeons solving complex tasks.  The complete scene can be seen here.

In the following experiment we can see the presence of superstition in pigeons. In the experiment, some food was automatically provided to the pigeons at regular intervals of time, with independence of the animal's conduct. What happened was that the pigeons seemed to associate the delivery of the food with the actions they had been doing before and, with the intention of obtaining more food, they continued  to perform the same actions

A happy superstitious pigeon.

The interesting thing about this theory was it's link with human behaviour.

The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one's luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing—or, more strictly speaking, did something else.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source:  Mr Nobody. Starring moment: 0:1:13.
• Pigeon activity: Pigeons and doves appear solving complex tasks and proving that they can exhibit complex behaviours. 
• Symbolism: High. This scene can be seen as a allegory of the different choices that one person makes in his life and how they change his/her destiny. 
• Relevance: Low. It is surprising to see how such pigeon-intensive credits have no relevance to the film's plot. 
• Training level: Medium. Some of the pigeons were subjected to an artificial environment that causes the behaviours described in this post. 

The duchess: a quite decent pigeon

Title: The Duchess

Year:  2008

Director:   Saul Dibb

Running time: 110 min.

Country: United Kingdom

Today we have a special pigeon appearance. Contradicting the post's title, it is not a pigeon well respected by the avian nor human community. It is not flying, nor roaming around. The pigeon is served in a dish for a sad Duchess that is maritally frustrated and on top of that, has no appetite at all. The scene could not be more dramatic. The poor animal is served but the lady (Keira Knightley) has no interest in it, and she looks totally absent minded.

In front of her, her husband the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) and his mistress are sat and enjoying the meal while the Duchess' lover is shouting at the front door demanding to talk with his lover. It is understandable that in such a bizarre situation, one wouldn't be interested in any kind of meal.

After banishing her lover, the Duchess goes back to dinner and sits again. The Duke looks up, chewing and says: What’s the matter, don’t like the pigeon? I find it really quite decent.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: The Duchess. Starring moment: 1:25:52
• Pigeon activity: None. It is a cooked pigeon served on a plate. 
• Symbolism: There is no special symbolism. I would assume the pigeon represents typical English 18th century high society cuisine.
• Relevance: Low, there is no impact on the film's plot line.
• Training level: Unfortunately, not applicable. 

Burning man: pigeons forming a backdrop to a drama

Title: Burning man

Year:  2011

Director:   Jonathan Teplitzky

Running time: 110 min.

Country: Australia

There are sad movies and cruel sad movies. One example of latter is Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. I think that it is nice film, but I didn't like it at all. When I left the cinema after watching it, I felt something like I had been suffering emotional torture with a plot which was specially designed to sadden the spectator. Is such a cruel story really necessary? Such is life, Eastwood would probably say, but this is not the point. The point is the aim of this film style: they write a deliberately cruel story in order to shock the spectator and increase the film's popularity.

Burning man belongs to this category. It depicts the sad life of Tom (Matthew Goode), a skillful chef who is specially enthusiastic about cooking sea food. His wife dies of cancer and left him alone with his son. This film consists of continuous flashbacks and flashforwards where his happy life with his wife (before the sickness) is interlaced with very sad scenes depicting her agony and his desperation. I think that this film shows too much drama. Anyway, it includes some interesting pigeon appearances: in a picnic organized by a group of families, Tom becomes hysterical and starts to destroy the picnic before the amazed stares of the onlookers.

In the middle of this devastation we can see several scared pigeons. Here there is a bird witnessing the picnic destruction.

And in the following images we can see several pigeons flying around the scene:

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Burning man. Starring moment:  0:54:29
• Pigeon activity: They are common pigeons scared by a hysterical father who is flattening a picnic.
• Symbolism: None, they are common pigeons.
• Relevance: Low. Pigeons are used for increasing the level of drama. 
• Training level: High. Very well trained animals that perform a perfect side flight in the scene.

Caramel: a wedding and some pigeon droppings

Title: Sukkar banat (Caramel)

Year:  2007

Director:  Nadine Labaki

Running time: 96 min.

Country:  Lebanon

A wedding is time for celebration and joy, and nothing can spoil it. Not even a pigeon performing a carpet bombing of the guests. This film presents the life of five women in modern Beirut. I really enjoyed how it combines comedy and drama. I also was delighted when I found a pigeon appearance which I'll describe here:

At a certain point of the film, there is a wedding and the bride throws the bouquet from a balcony. Several of the guests are women that are grouped with great expectation for being the one who catches it.

But instead of that, a woman receives a dropping directly on her face. This is a very unpleasant situation. Try to imagine how such dropping can spoil a dress that was carefully chosen for the celebration or cause a serious makeup disorder.

Very nasty.....

What we see is a pigeon flying away in the distance. It is the culprit of this wedding madness.

Immediately, the panic spreads among the guests and everybody looks upwards looking for the source of the dropping.

After that they realise that the danger was over and now, all of them are safe from further droppings. The joy comes back again, the woman cleans her face and the celebration resumes with full intensity. The complete scene can be seen here.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Sukkar banat (Caramel). Starring moment: 1:25:06
• Pigeon activity: It is a pigeon which performs an on-the-fly deposition over the wedding guests.
  
• Symbolism: Low. In this case, this situation that is used to show us how an awful situation can be overcome by a positive attitude.
• Relevance: Low. Despite the pigeon intervention at a critical point of the wedding, the women managed that with good humour and the joyful situation was soon restored.
• Training level: It is difficult to analyze the pigeon's training level because of the short appearance. It is probably a wild animal.