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.

You have to be astonished that this one collected a Palme. Not least, it evidently lies in the shadow of Haneke, winner of two recent Palmes for much better movies.

The satire on the art world, the rattling of the bourgeoisie, both seem too overdrawn to be effective. Sketches go on too long, as when the museum director videos his apology, or the ape-man detonates the society party. Cutaways that don't happen, or do but are merely irritating, seem like unsuccessful adaptions of Haneke's grating style.

A few folks left my screening up around the 90 minute mark, their patience evidently worn thin. They'd seen the best of it, like the director's fling with the journo.

Now, if you really want to see someone stick it right up the bourgeoisie, you can't go past Haneke's mordant misbehaviour in Benny's Video (1992).

Like almost everyone else reviewing here, my wife and I found this way, way too long. Maybe 45 minutes too long. Maybe an hour.

Scene after scene we found ourselves remarking to each other, "what was the point of that?" Just one example: the scene with the ape street performer ran for something like 7-8 minutes. We thought it could have been done in a fraction of that and nothing would have been lost. Then I later thought they could have done without it entirely and I'm not sure anything would have been lost.

The scene with the museum director given the speech on the steps of the foyer? What was the point? What did it add? Nothing that we could see.

Scene after scene we turned to each other and asked the same question.

So instead of being a tight 1:30 to 1:45 movie, this ran on for a tedious 2 and a half hours.

I have a personal rule of thumb when it comes to films. Movies that are written and directed by the same person are so often self-indulgent. I'm going to have to amend that to: movies written, directed and edited by the same person are invariably self-indulgent and way too long.

A good director here would have told the writer what was wrong with the script and suggested what needed to be rewritten. A good editor would have gone back to the director and told him that it was running too long and that by cutting this or that that the result would have been better.

Unfortunately this film has, needless to say, the same person in all three roles. and as a result, it's way too long and was just tedious.

Sorry, but I just don't understand the rave reviews some have given this. Yes, this is ALMOST a good film. But only ALMOST.

Hard to classify this movie, after watching it at the New Zealand International Film Festival just a few hours ago.

Humorous? Certainly. In some moments even hilarious. Yet, this movie has some very u-boat layers to its seemingly light-hearted making-fun-of-arts theme. Even though it is tempting, I am not going to be an artsy-fartsy-smartarse trying to deliver a holistic explanation of this flick (all I'm saying is: "Swedish society" and "human nature").

The acting is superb and sometimes massively ("Oleg-style") impressive.

My only criticism is that the movie is too long. Clipping some minutes here, and some minutes there, would have streamlined the viewing experience.

A complex movie. Recommended to watch whenever you have some spare brain capacity at hands. ;-)

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.