Ruben Ostlund’s satire THE SQUARE was Cannes’ Palme D’Or winner this year but this ambitious film is a decidedly unusual winner. Ostlund’s previous film, FORCE MAJEURE, explored a single morally-bad choice in a caustically comic way. THE SQUARE turns a satiric eye on modern art, contemporary society, political correctness, homelessness, sex, income inequality and more, although it often focuses on the subject of trust. THE SQUARE, partly in English and partly in Swedish with subtitles, is sly, darkly satiric and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny film, when it is not just downright disturbing. This is not a film for everyone, but it has rewards for those up for its wild ride.
The story revolves around Christian (Claes Bang), the curator at a modern art museum in Sweden. The film’s title refer to a new art installation, a simple square cut into the pavement and edged with an LED light strip, and marked with a plaque reading, “The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations.” It is a peaceful sentiment, and pretty far from what really goes on in THE SQUARE, once director Ruben Ostlund’s biting social satire gets underway.
Christian’s modern art museum is housed in a historic building adjoining the former royal palace, now also a museum. Redirecting lost tourists to the palace is a daily task for the art museum’s staff. At the film’s beginning, an old bronze equestrian statue is unceremoniously ripped from its pedestal in front of the museum, as the hundreds-year-old brick pavement next to it is sliced into for the new art installation, “The Square.”
Tradition and history don’t get much respect at this museum but money sure does. Like all museums, pleasing donors and the board are a major part of Christian’s job as curator, and drumming up media, and public, interest in the gentle message of the new art installation, by Argentinian artist and sociologist Lola Arias, may be a challenge.
A robbery in which Christian is conned and loses his smart phone and wallet kicks off the series of events that comprise the plot. One of Ostlund’s targets is the media, and its tendency to bring out the worst in people. The gentle message of the art installation has no appeal to the media, which demands “controversy.” While Christian is preoccupied with his own drama over the stolen cell phone and wallet, the PR company cooks up a plan to go viral. The others at the table are clearly uneasy but no one wants to take responsibility for saying no. When the distracted Christian does not object, the plan is launched, with bizarre results. It goes viral and gets media attention all right but not in a good way.
Ostlund underlines modern society’s growing distrust of government by the fact that no one even mentions calling the police after the robbery. Christian and his co-worker’s track his stolen cell phone themselves, and determine where the thief lives.
Christian is the stereotype of the sincere, serious modern man, capable of saying all the right things but clueless about his bubble of privilege. He knows all the right words but just can’t grasp how they relate to him. We first meet the handsome, sincere, well-spoken curator as he is being interviewed by an American journalist named Anne (Elizabeth Moss). As Anne reverently asks him about a self-contradictory statement on the museum’s website, Christian’s answer tips us off as to just how far into the realm of verbal BS this film is willing to wade – which is way into the deep end. The scene is hilarious and telling. Later, they have an equally telling and funny confrontation, in front of an art installation made up of a creaking pile of chairs.
The art world is an easy target but far from the only one in this satire. “If we took your bag and placed it here (on the museum floor), would that make it art?” Christian says, posing a question art experts have been asking since Marcel Duchamp bought a urinal at a hardware store, re-named it “Fountain,” and displayed it in an art gallery. The modern answer seems to be, it does – if you have an art degree. But Ostlund then goes after a host of aspects of modern life, in hilariously pointed fashion.
Christian is a sincere guy who tries to think globally and thinks of himself as a good person. He says all the right things, drives a Tesla, is a caring divorced father of two daughters, but his expressions of ethical/moral concern do not match his actions. He walks past the homeless people who seem to be everywhere is this Swedish city without even noticing. Occasionally, he gives them money or buys them a sandwich but that is as far has it goes.
Christian is all talk and no action, idealist in how he speaks but cynical in how he acts, reflecting many people in modern society. A caring divorced father to his two daughters, he is cool to the pleas of the boy whose trouble with his family were caused by Christian’s unthinking actions. The boy demands, then begs Christian to apologize to his family for the mistake, but while he tells the boy he’s sorry, he’s unwilling to do more. When he finally does, he blames the whole world in his rambling apology.
The film’s events are often funny if bizarre, but sometimes just disturbing. Ostlund clearly wants to disturb, to encourage people to think. Often, the film focuses on trust – who to trust, how far to trust, trust in others, trust in the system. Although there is a plot that ties everything together, individual scenes frequently play out like skits, some silly, some weird, some alarming.
The film is peppered with biting routines. The artist who created “The Square” never appears in the film but another artist, Julian (Dominic West) does. Julian is the epitome of the smug, superior stereotype of an artist. One of the film’s absurdly comic scenes has the artist speaking in a gallery Q and A with a museum staff, only to be interrupted by shouted sexual comments from a man with Tourette’s Syndrome. The audience nods tolerantly, but as the interruptions become more frequent, continuing becomes impossible. When an audience member timidly ventures to speak up, she is pounced on by others set on lecturing her on tolerance.
“We, as a museum, mustn’t be afraid to push boundaries,” Christian tells us, but pushing donors’ boundaries is another matter. Lavish parties and events with guest artists are major part of Christian’s job.
One of the film’s most unsettling scenes takes place at a black-tie gala dinner for wealthy donors, at which the entertainment is a performance called “The Animal.” After a menacing voice booms out over jungle sounds, warning the audience not to confront or challenge “the animal,” an actor named Oleg (American stuntman/motion capture actor Terry Notary, who specializes in portraying animals) emerges, bare-chested and wearing gruesome prosthetic teeth, wanders among the tables, imitating chimp-like vocalizations and “knuckle-walking” with the help of metal extensions on his hands. At first the formally-dressed attendees are amused but when one of them gets too flippant with “the animal,” violence ensues and the line between pretense and reality blurs. The scene is striking, due in part to Notary’s performance, in which the muscular but middle-aged shirtless man displays a mix of humanity and wild animal, melancholy and menace.
THE SQUARE is not really saying something new but it is making its points in a strikingly fresh, satiric way. As Charlie Chaplin noted, sometimes you can say something serious more effectively with comedy.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
