PMDb film and TV series visual index

Here is an link to at-a-glance visual list of the covers of films and TV series that have been posted so far. The list is ordered chronologically. Each image contains a link to the related post.

I have a much longer list (with tens of films) that have been reported but not reviewed yet - thank you very much to all the pigeon spotters and film contributors who have shared information with me. My plan is to gradually enrich the PMDb with these feathered findings.

Game of thrones: Arya Stark, the pigeon slayer

Title: Game of Thrones
Year: 2011 
Director: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Timothy Van Patten, Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Alan Taylor
Running time: 55 min.

Country: United States
 

It is almost impossible to do not feel pity for Arya. She lost half of her family, she was forced to run away, living a life of poverty and, on top of that, she is surviving in an extremely violent environment. Any social worker from the Office of Child and Family Services would place her in a special protection program.

However, she also has a dark side, a cruel mind that not only thinks about revenge, but about pigeon carnage. Her violent actions were performed not in one, but several scenes during this tv series. In this entry we can see one of them, where this young girl is having fun beheading an innocent pigeon. The scene is shown below. No additional comments are necessary.

The poor pigeon is not aware of the great jeopardy that is coming.

Arya slaying an innocent pigeon.

The most tragic part of this story is Arya's face after this unfortunate training practice: she shows nothing, not shame, not  happiness, just a cold, inexpressive stare towards the dead bird. A pure gem for psychotherapists.  Arya, pigeons will never forget this offense.

Details of the pigeon starring 

• Source: Game of Thrones. Starring moment: 0:44:05
• Pigeon activity: It is a common pigeon belonging to the Game of Thrones' universe that has a fatal encounter with a bored killing machine eager to slash living forms with her sword. 
• Symbolism: Performing this action against a pigeon (one of the most harmless creatures on Earth - ignoring the dropping-related side effects or the intense cooing during the mating season-) is a clear example of how deranged the poor girl is. Definitely, not a good choice for babysitting.
• Relevance: For the poor pigeon character, high, because it is the end of the story for the animal. Looking at the bird's head size, it seems like a female pigeon. I hope that it is not the breeding season and there are no squabs waiting for her. 
• Training level: Low. The pigeon shows steely calm facing its final like the musicians of the Titanic. The difference is that here the iceberg has a sword. 

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. 

Fifth edition of Pigeon Quest

Welcome to the Fifth Edition of Pigeon Quest. Here, instead of finding the pigeon in the film, you have to find the film with the pigeon.

Just write in the comments the film name with a recognized user name. An anonymous comment will produce an anonymous winner. The first one in succeeding will win and receive an honorary certificate. 

The winner of this quest can be seen here.

The film review can be found here. 

You can see other editions of this Quest here.

In this sequence we can observe two people entering an abandoned building.....

When they are observing the ruins, two doves and a pigeon start flying, surprised by the intruders....

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. 

Film tribute: Trainspotting 2

From Pigeon Movie Database we wish you a happy New Year with this film tribute.

Choose flight.
Choose a flock.
Choose a town square.
Choose a bird partner,

Choose a cosy big nest
Choose bread crumbs, parks,
pigeon-feeding pensioners, and eaves with good views
Choose flight.