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. 

On the waterfront: pigeons for pulling

Title: On the waterfront
Year:  1954

Director: Elia Kazan

Running time: 108 min.

Country: United States

In this film, we can see practical examples of the use of pigeons for seduction and killing. Marlon Brando won an Oscar performing the role of Terry Malloy: a dockworker that breeds pigeons and sympathizes with a mob-union syndicate.  At the beginning of the film, Terry uses a one of these creatures to fool another pigeon breeder who was going to testify against the union syndicate. With the excuse of finding a lost pigeon, Terry leads him to a deadly ambush. Terry was initially on the side of the bad guys, but we will see that in the end he is not bad at all and pigeon are not only used for wicked purposes.

Terry uses a pigeon to fool another pigeon breeder.

This film is a drama but it also has some room for a memorable romance between Terry and Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint) who is the sister of the murdered pigeon breeder. Terry feels attracted to her and the problem is how to get a date. One day, she meets him on a rooftop and Terrie exploits this opportunity to impress her by showing her his pigeons. He proudly talks to her about his fondness for his racing pigeons and how loyal pigeons are.  This is a touching romantic scene where a pigeon performs with the main protagonists. The complete scene can be seen here. Unfortunately, Terry decides to face the mob union syndicate and eventually both Terry and his pigeons suffer a cruel reprisal by this organization.

Terry shows a pigeon to Edie in order to impress her.

Edie took the bait and seems to be interested in the pigeon.

The pigeon trick is working and we can appreciate a spark of interest in her eyes.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: On the waterfront  Starring moment: 0:02:10, 0:35:18
• Pigeon activity: They are bred pigeons that live in a coop on a rooftop in New Jersey.
• Symbolism: There are several theories about the pigeon symbolism. They can represent the dockworkers that are exploited by and kept from testifying by the mob. In this case they represent the weakest members of the community (an analysis can be seen here). The pigeons are also seen as stool pigeons, a slang expression that describes informers. In real life, the director himself became a stool pigeon providing testimony to the HUAC for anti-Communist investigations in Hollywood (analysis here).
• Relevance: High. In the main pigeon appearances, they are used to achieve very different goals: killing an informer and attracting a woman. The pigeons also support Marlon Brando's performance contributing to his Oscar Award.
• Training level: High. They are genuine bred pigeons that are used to being in close contact with humans.

Pigeon Street: pigeons for children

Title:Pigeon Street
Year: 1981
Director: Alan Rogers and Peter Lang
Running time: 15 min.
Country: United Kingdom

Pigeon Street is a pre-schoolers oriented television series which describes the life in a British city in and around Pigeon Street. It includes many characters related to different roles in society and it also includes pigeons... many pigeons. In the figure below we can see the main characters.

Pigeon Street characters and pigeons.

The contents of the series are politically correct, including for instance, Clara, a long distance lorry driver. Another interesting character is Bob. He is the owner of a bike shop who breeds homing pigeons. In the picture below we can see how after transporting pigeons in his motorbike (note the pigeon symbol on the helmet) he opens the basket and frees the pigeons which head back to their home. This is Bob's pigeon song -I really like the expression they feather the sky-.

Bob's pigeons are ever so clever
You'll never seen pigeons quite as clever as Bob's
Whatever the weather they feather the sky
to fly home and dry 

 home and dry

to Bob

Bob (behind the basket) frees the homing pigeons.

Homing pigeons cross the city heading back to their home.

The music is very remarkable. Most of the theme tunes can be downloaded from the Pigeon Street Official Site. This site also includes a list of episodes and characters. Another resource for music and character descriptions is Little Gems.

I would also like to mention the main theme of the series which is played at the intro. I don't understand why, but I have this song playing in my head all day long....

 

If you lived in Pigeon Street,
Here are the people you could meet,
Here are the people who would say
Hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye
Every day

If you lived in Pigeon Street,
Here are the people you could meet,
Here are the people who would share
the sights, the sounds, the air
Where pigeons beat their wings, wings beat.
Pigeons beat their wings, wings beat
to meet in Pigeon Street

Most of episodes are online. For instance, Noisy Neighbours can be seen here.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Pigeon Street  Starring moment: in all the episodes
• Pigeon activity: They are non-shy-friendly-urban pigeons which like to stay close to and interact with humans.
• Symbolism: Pigeons are described as friendly animals that live together with humans. I think that this is a very positive message for children.
• Relevance: Medium. Although several pigeons appear in each episode, they only occasionally feature in the plot. Usually they are relegated to secondary characters. 
• Training level: Non applicable.

Spartacus: leveraging pigeons for getting a gladiator's friendship

Title: Spartacus: Gods of the Arena
Year: 2011
Director: Steven S. DeKnight, Rick Jacobson
Running time: 40 min.
Country: United States

In Capua, 75 B.C., the relationship between Crixus and Barca is becoming unbearable. That morning, Barca's lover has been killed by Crixus during a tough fight in the arena. Crixus is a tough guy, but he has a sense of companionship, so he wants to make peace with Barca. In the scene, Barca is alone and his only company is the pigeon which he raises. This is not the only example of fighters with feathered pets.  Just try to Google Mike Tyson + dove.

Returning to the episode, Crixus asks himself: What is the best strategy to make peace with the beast of Barca? Very simple: to try to be the friend of his favorite pet. Consequently, Crixus goes to talk with Barca and offers him a piece of bread for his pigeon. Cool, right?

The first scene is interesting: we can see a pigeon that is the protagonist for 3 seconds. Crixus comes in but -because of the pigeon protagonism- he is completely blurred.

Then we can see Barca, who is initially staring at his pigeon, and then, he faces Crixus -with a highly constrained rage.Thanks to the pigeon, the peace and friendship between two gladiators is reestablished.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. Episode 2x04. Starring moment: 0:20:49

• Pigeon activity:  resting in the gladiator's hands.

• Symbolism:  My hypothesis is that the pigeon has a crucial role in the scene, as it represents a catalyst that prevents the clash of these two characters.

• Relevance: In a cruel Roman world, a tough gladiator (Barca) uses pigeons to get some peace. Perhaps during that morning, he bravely killed several men during a killing rampage, but in the afternoon he takes care of his beloved creatures. In this character the pigeon transmits peace and calm, which is efficiently exploited by Crixus to make peace. What if Barca had been training with a sword instead of stroking a pigeon? Probably they would fight to the death, completely changing the course of this tv series.

• Training level: very high. This is a domestic pigeon explicitly used during the movie recording.