THE SQUARE (2017)
Directed by Ruben
Östlund
TriArt, 151 minutes,
R (nudity, language, disturbing images)
In Swedish, Danish,
English, and English subtitles
★★★
The Square was
Sweden's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2108 Oscars. Watching it
explains instantly why it was nominated and why it did not—indeed could
not—win. It has much to say, but it's an experimental film marked by insight
and incoherence, poignancy and puzzlement, and fine performances and mediocre
ones. Director Ruben Östlund seems aware of these contradictions, yet embraces
them, integrates them into the plot, and uses them to parody the very world of
conceptual art to which he belongs.
Let's start with how the film is routinely digested for movie
listings. It uses the artist's statement for the work at the film's periphery:
"The Square
is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and
obligations." This leads one to think the film is some sort of docudrama about
an enigmatic piece of art: a literal square cut into courtyard paving stones
whose borders are marked by a solid line of white light. That certainly did not
propel me into the theater. In the movie, though, the work is talked about more
than actually shown. This suggests that The
Square needed a better marketing campaign, but marketing is one of the
targets of Östlund's lampoon—another odd choice given that such a work
actually exists and was not fashioned by the film's fictional Lola Arias, but
by Östlund himself and two others.
What's going on here? The
Square's protagonist is Christian (Claes Bang), the curator of the Stockholm
X-Royal Art Museum, whose forte is edgy conceptual art the likes of which straddle
the razor's edge between bold and just plain bullshit. There is, for example, a
room filled with conical piles of dirt. What do you make of that? And what if I
told you that Yoko Ono actually made
such an installation? Östlund's own Square is a riff on environmental artists
such as Julian Schnabel and you'll also find sneaky references to Robert
Smithson, Carl Hammond, and Oleg Kulik. That is, if you even know who these
people are. This too is a cloaked insider joke. To know these people requires a
level of familiarity that often presents as sophistication. Is it, or is it
self-reverential snobbery? There's a delicious early scene in which Anne (Elisabeth
Moss), a journalist, asks Christian to explain one of the museum's own
statements about an exhibit. She reads him the verbatim postmodern mangling of
language and Christian can but parrot back a few of the words Anne has just
read. She replies that she has no more questions, though it was just her
second. This won't prevent the two from bedding, though, so let's cut to a few
other things in play.
The Square also skewers
bourgeois and sophisticate values, especially the hypocrisy of how the well
heeled speak with such passion of how
the art and their lives identify with "the voiceless," yet each day they rush
by street beggars. Another scene—which actually happened—finds Christian unable
to complete a public interview as he is constantly interrupted by vulgarities
from a man with Tourettes Syndrome. The very idea that this person should not
be allowed to remain in the auditorium is met with vigorous protest from those decrying
that those with such problems should not be marginalized. In fact, this is a
double parody; it also explores the tension between the cultural decorum of
Swedes versus the dilemmas posed by absolute tolerance. Such conundrums rise
again when an ad firm produces a buzz video. A blond child stands in the Square
and a voiceover challenges viewers to prove they truly are passionate. A clock
ticks down and the little girl is blown to smithereens. (Echoes of the famed
"daisy" ad from the 1964 POTUS campaign.) An outraged media descends
upon Christian, but their outrage is all over the map. Some denounce the videos'
poor taste, some want to know why the child was blond and not representative of
those more likely to be downtrodden, and still others accuse Christian of
self-censorship when he announces the ad has been pulled and that he has
tendered his resignation. This one has a very surprising resolution.
The Square is
filled with questions about the limits of altruism and tolerance, including a
performance art dinner for big donors in which simian-like actors pose as wild
beasts. How tolerant can we be before our own atavistic instincts reemerge? As
you might surmise, Christian is the biggest hypocrite of all—though he will be
challenged in poignant ways.
Bang is terrific as Christian and Dominic West shows up
speaking, from I can tell, fluent Swedish. Christopher Læssø is riveting as a
black man who is never quite sure of whom to trust and whom to fear. Moss,
however, is a noticeable weak link. That startled me as she has attracted
attention for past performances and is considered by many to be a rising serious
actress. In The Square though, she is
clingy, libidinous, and shallow. That may be what the script called for, but if
so, it doesn't work very well. The real question is whether audiences will get
what is essentially a satirical drama, or simply get lost in all the
unexplained weirdness. The Square won
the Palme d'Or, but the Cannes festival delights in honoring quirky films. I
liked this film, but it has holes and it's simply too outré for mass tastes. Is
that another message?
Rob Weir
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