The Square

2017's Palme d'or winner, Swedish absurdist Ruben Östlund's social satire taps into the life of Christian (Bang), the curator of an art museum in Stockholm, which will descend into a tailspin after his wallet and smartphone is stolen en route to work one day by a confidence trick.

A significant step-up from his uppity marital disintegration inspection FORCE MAJEURE (2014), In THE SQUARE, Östlund has learned how to let his hair down with more brio and conceal moral condescendence among his sarcastic skits, which makes for a piquant contemporary comedy doesn't flinch from touching many a raw nerve among audience, anyway, the joke is on all of us because there are something undeniably unsavory residing within every and each human soul, we can laugh about it, but more often than not, a twinge of self-awareness synchronously pulsates.

"The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations." it is a motto from the museum's latest exhibition, whose titular installation supersedes an august bronze statue in the opening (with droll maladroitness setting the keynote of the film), but can its underlying altruism transcend from artistic cant into something concrete in reality? Christian's story will give us a wry answer.

A seemingly harmless plan (although Christian must deign to actualize it) to retrieve his stolen phone actually works, but before Christian's euphoria subsides, it boomerangs. It only takes a sincere apologize and some explanation to mend the fences, which eventually deteriorates into uncanny paranoia and insidious physical affliction towards a minor is implied, in-congruent with the rest of the film's farcical tenor, but it tests the boundary of how far THE SQUARE is willing to push the buttons, and Östlund shows judicious concerns about what is shown on the screen in slightly gnawing execution, and no easy recompense is dished up in the end.

Elsewhere, jokes are in full swing, starting from the opening interview of Christian from an American journalist Anne (Moss) about the gobbledygook on the museum's internet, to a faux pas caused by a Tourette's syndrome patient, and the ludicrous tug-of-war in Anne and Christian's one-night-stand, apparently with a chimpanzee in the next room, until the dreadful irony in our click-bait media publicity with controversial, eyeball-grabbing gimmick, and a painful realization that it often works. However, the central piece, of course belongs to the hyped (which is on the film's main poster) performance art of an ape-man radically terrorizing the entire guests of a banquet to a bitter end, motion-capture stuntman Terry Notary totally owns the one-off opportunity in the central stage to redefine primate mimicking and debunk how similarly animalistic we are underneath all the finery exterior, notwithstanding the whole act partakes of a well- orchestrated trick for the sake of scandalization.

A late-bloomer Claes Bang is perfectly apt in inhabiting Christian's towering figure, dapper mien and jaunty disposition, oozing disarming charisma which veils his self-seeking nature to a degree we even tend to give excuses to him involuntarily (that boy is tenacious and annoying, how on earth his staff could upload that inappropriate video onto their public website without his imprimatur?), and in the gender politics spar with a gutsy Elisabeth Moss (although her part is shamefully peripheral, and her defense of "it takes two to tango" accusation is too feeble to register), which fortuitously hits the hot-button with the current power-abuse cleansing pandemic.

Forsaking a traditional score in favor of a cappella passages to heave the story's emotional shift, THE SQUARE is a sharp-tongued, rapier-like caricature aiming at a society characterized by class- discrepancy (beggars galore in one of the richest country in the world is a disheartening antimony), patriarchy and apathy, redolent of a visceral tang of self-reflexive mockery with a knowing wink, that is the power of THE SQUARE.

American reporter Anne (Elisabeth Moss) interviews Christian (Claes Bang), the curator of an avantgarde modern art museum in Stockholm. His phone and his wallet get stolen by a crew of pickpockets. His assistant Michael helps track the phone and suggests sending threatening letters to all the apartments within the phone's location. Christian does it and faces unexpected consequences.

The scheme is actually quite clever and it works in the movie. Christian is very frustrating in the politically correct way. He is off-putting but that's the point. He could easily fix the problem with the kid but he's too scared of him. It would be more understandable if the kid is a teenager. It's silly and shows his lack of a backbone. There are a couple of amazing scenes and there are quite a few filler scenes in two and a half hours. It definitely could be cut down to two hours. The Tourette's scene is fun. Moss has a couple of great scenes and she's the best actor in the movie. This is not a movie to root for the guy but also not to root against him. It's not really a comedy or that intense as a drama. It's a movie of frustration at all of his fallibilities. It is great at painting a picture of a man trying to be good but lacks the courage to be truly good when backed into a corner.

A clever, and insightful, but somewhat meandering, social satire that, in hindsight, feels more like a series of vignettes loosely connected by the films protagonist, a well-known museum curator. The satirical sections that focus on the Modern Art world are dead on, although with, perhaps too much restraint. For the most part they are so understated you might find yourself wondering if the filmmakers were intentionally being satiric; except for, obviously, the film's high-point "Welcome to the Jungle" - both its most humorous and chilling sequence - which literally has a punchline at the end. It could easily be argued the film is worth watching for this section alone. Primarily concerned with how individuals interact with society and the world around them, scenes often play out with the camera focused on one character's reaction as opposed to the action, or conversation, occurring off-screen. This can be a disorienting choice, and, at times, confusing, yet undoubtedly all that is intentional. But be warned, the film will make no attempt to tie up all its lose ends: some characters just drop out of sight, storylines are left dangling and the movie just comes to a stop as opposed to having a real climax. You can be left feeling poked and prodded by the film for having watched it, as opposed to rewarded. But, hey, it's Art.

This is a hard film to describe and an even harder film to review but I'm going to try my best to express how I felt about it.

In an attempt to put it simply, The Square follows a modern art museum curator named Christian (played by Claes Bang), and some increasingly strange experiences which shape his views and understandings of the world he lives in and the people around him.

I had the chance to see this film on opening night at the New Zealand International Film Festival, and I am so glad I did. The Square plays like an increasingly bizarre farce, and while the film is indeed very funny (sometimes in shocking ways) it provides a consistently fascinating look at our behavior as people in society. Now I realize that isn't necessarily innovative for a film in 2017, but that said, The Square dares to pose increasingly uncomfortable questions to its audience.

From the inherent narcissism of even the most ordinary of people, to the shallowness of popular culture, to the complex behaviors and interactions between people of disparate backgrounds. Again, these ideas are not necessarily novel, but the film presents them in a way that is consistently entertaining - even when certain exchanges on- screen are uncomfortable. There is a scene that takes place at a gathering of elite artists and sponsors that is as squirm-inducing as anything I've seen all year. I also must point out the constant use of dead-pan humor with verbal and visual gags throughout as one of the film's secret weapons.

I would warn that this is not a film for everyone. The pacing is uneven, the structure is unusual, and there isn't a whole lot of forward momentum to propel the film forward. But, if you are willing to meet the film halfway, I think you're in for a fascinating, shocking, hilarious and uncomfortable (skewered) mirror into the society we live in.

Winning last year's Canne's Film Festival coveted Palme d'Or prize and Oscar and Golden Globe nominated for Best Foreign Film at this year's awards season, Ruben Östlund's Swedish set The Square certainly comes to home release with some prestige attached to it but this bum-numbing epic that acts as a darkly humorous expose of modern art culture and more broadly an examination of humankind in general, is the type of film that will split viewers down the middle in regards to love and hate.

Following on from his critically acclaimed Force Majeure from 2014, Östlund continues on with his slowly paced and methodical way of story-telling as we here follow Claes Bang's art gallery curator Christian through what feels like a collection of mini-films within the larger whole as the all of a sudden under duress big-shot finds his life hitting a few roadblocks in the lead up to his gallery's opening of an exhibition known as The Square.

It's a seemingly simplistic set-up but Östlund's execution is anything but, as Christian's journey entails awkward romantic encounters with Elizabeth Moss's American Anne, a crayon carrying chimp, an extremely abnormal dinner function, an angry child and a viral video that is a catalyst to much of Christian's woes.

These occurrences all add up to a whole that combines to create an almost unnerving atmosphere and tone but they don't gel to create a cohesive narrative that feels all that apparent and while many will find messages and themes that are possibly there and possibly not there, it feels like The Square squanders some chances to be a genuinely effective dark comedy/expose as it gets lost in an abundance of over-long and over-wrought scenes that needed a much tighter edit.

One aspect of the film that can't be faulted however is Östlund's cast commitment to the cause with everyone giving it their all, with Bang and Moss in particular impressing in their roles, while the films few definitively laugh out loud scenes such as disrupted Q and A and the aforementioned dinner feel like scenes out of a much more well-rounded and engaging film.

Final Say -

An over-long and overall bloated arthouse offering, The Square has some nice ideas and potentially relevant messages but it's hard for them too shine through when the film around them is such a hard slog to endure.

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