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. 

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. 

The core: pigeon apocalipsis... and a fishy surprise

Title: The core

Year:  2003

Director:  Jon Amiel

Running time: 135 min.

Country: United States

I am imagining a conversation between the two film script writers, named Mr. Allan and Mr. Palmer. Note, the names are purely fictional. Any similarity with real people is purely coincidental.

Mr. Allan: We need to create terror...
Mr. Palmer:  Let's do it with pigeons!! Hitchcock did it before with birds, now we can create avian terror again!!
Mr. Allan:  Hitchcock used crows!! Crows are traditionally sinister creatures but pigeons are harmless. You will never see a pigeon eating the eye of a hanged person. No one will feel fear with pigeons.
Mr. Palmer: Maybe the effect of one pigeon is negligible but if we create a horde of dangerous pigeons we will make the public fear the birds again.
Mr. Allan: You are insane.

And they made it....  first they set the location, one of the most pigeon-busy areas in the world: Trafalgar Square. Then, they introduced the movie plot, an alteration in the Earth's core that changes the magnetic fields and turns the pigeons disoriented and a bit crazy. Finally, the context, a flock of pigeons with suicidal tendencies.

Without the context it looks like a typical pigeon flock, but it actually is an horde of terror.

Suddenly, the pigeons lose control (because of the change in the magnetic fields) and start smashing into everything around them. People panic and start escaping from the square.

A terrorized family escaping from the pigeon horde.

In the scene, most of the pigeons are CGI animated, like the screen shot below, where we observe a quite rigid pigeon hitting a car windscreen.

Computer-generated pigeon hitting a windscreen.

However, to add extra realism, other pigeons are genuine, like the one standing bravely on the steering wheel of a bus.The bus driver, in contrast, seems to be scared by the avian presence.

A real pigeon scaring a bus driver. The pigeon is now in the control of the bus.

Finally, the pigeon turns out not to be such a good driver and causes the bus accident. Other vehicles also collide in multiple road accidents. A total disaster.

The calamity extends to the surrounding area when tens of pigeons crash into shop windows, breaking the glass and increasing the havoc. It is worth mentioning that for completely unknown reasons, the CGI replaced one pigeon with a fish (screenshot below) at the moment of hitting the glass. Maybe was a mistake, a problem with the software repository, or a kind of joke, because pigeons and fish tend not to fly together. The complete scene can be seen here.

When tens of pigeons break the glass one flying fish appears in scene. 

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: The core. Starring moment: 0:07:30
• Pigeon activity: A huge group of London pigeons lose their orientation because of a change in the Earth's magnetic fields. Because of this, they start colliding with their surroundings, causing more chaos and remarkable destruction  
• Symbolism: The film introduces several examples that represent how disastrous a change in the Earth's core could be for nature. In particular, the scene shows how innocent animals - the pigeons- can be turned into dreadful kamikazes by the Earth magnetic fields.
• Relevance: Medium, in the scene many people are scared and injured because of the chaotic actions of the pigeons.Unfortunately, there are not consequences for the remaining film plot. 
• Training level: Medium. Most of the animals are computer-made, but the ones that are real (like the one standing next to the bus driver) performs very well. 

Lego Batman The Movie - DC Superheroes United: lego pigeons!!

Title: Lego Batman: The Movie - DC Superheroes United

Year:  2013

Director:   Jon Burton

Running time: 71 min.

Country: USA

I was very pleased when I discovered that the iconic megalopolis of Gotham City has pigeons living in it. I think that this is a good example of how we (humans) extrapolate our living environment to imaginary scenarios. One exception that makes me deeply sad is Star Wars, where I couldn't find a single pigeon appearance in the whole saga. It seems that the pigeons had been unable to reach the Star Wars galaxy, that is too far away. I think that we will address this topic in another post.

Regarding this film, the context of the scene is the following one: Batman and Superman are fighting against a robot piloted by the Joker and Lex Luthor. In the middle of the combat, the robot falls in a park in the centre of Gotham city. What kind of innocent creatures were in the midst of the combat, roaming around the park? I think that it is not necessary to answer this question....

In the screenshot above we can see Mr. Bruce Wayne... sorry! Batman, looking how the evil robot falls down. He is surrounded by pigeons.

When the robot tragically collapses, both  the pigeons and Batman escape scared. It is interesting to highlight that Batman does not pay attention to the pigeons. Of course, he is in the middle of a fierce combat. But, on top of that, it is well known that pigeons and bats are like water and oil.... they can be in the same place, but they don't mix. 

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Lego Batman The Movie - DC Superheroes United. Starring moment: 0:59:00
• Pigeon activity: They represent typical pigeon life in urban environments. 
• Symbolism: I think that pigeons are used to provide more realism to the scene. That is, the use of pigeons makes Gotham City to seem like any other large city found in the real world. 
• Relevance: None. Unfortunately, pigeons are unable to help Batman in his tireless fight against the Joker. 
• Training level: Not applicable. They are computer-generated images.  

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. 

Shame: a lonely pigeon at the car park

Title: Shame

Year:  2011

Director:   Steve McQueen

Running time: 99 min.

Country: United Kingdom

Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a successful business man with a serious sex-addiction and a complicated relationship with his sister (Carey Mulligan). This was a disturbing film for me but I was surprised to find a feathered creature in it.

After a crazy sex-fuelled night out he becomes worried about his sister's state of mind and decides to call her. This worry increases when he sees that she doesn't pick up his calls. Then he decides he has to find her.

On his way he crosses a car park where a lonely pigeon is resting. Immediately, the pigeon is scared and flies away.

The director shows us this scene from different perspectives. We can see the pigeon close to the lower-right corner of the image.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Shame. Starring moment: 1:28:22
• Pigeon activity: It is a common New York pigeon that is roaming around a car park and is scared by a sex-addict that is running toward it. Fortunately, he is not running after it. 
  
• Symbolism: None. 
• Relevance: None. It only appears for few seconds and doesn't impact on the film's plot.
• Training level: Low. The pigeon's behaviour is very awkward. It was clearly planted for this scene and it doesn't behave naturally.