The Square

Started by wilder, May 20, 2017, 05:30:10 PM

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wilder

YES YES YES



People gather to city square, where there are no rules and you can do whatever you want.

Written and Directed by Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure)
Release Date - October 27, 2017








Quote"If he hadn't already laid claim to the title of king of the cringe-inducing confrontation and nabob of the nervous laugh with the withering Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund truly anoints himself with The Square, an excoriating razor-burn of a movie that deploys drollery like an instrument of torture," begins Jessica Kiang at the Playlist. "Broadening out his canvas from the family dynamics of his previous avalanche movie before slashing it to similarly precise shreds, The Square is made up of dozens of scenes of such perfect, short-story polish and bite that it almost feels like a vignette anthology rather than a feature."

Variety's Owen Gleiberman suggests that "Östlund creates suspense the old-fashioned way, setting up scenes that make the audience go: What in God's name is going to happen next? But he also creates suspense in a new-fangled way, turning the space between people into an alarming existential battleground. He's like Hitchcock infused with the spirit of mid-period Bergman."

"The Square turns a contemporary art museum into a city-state of bizarre, dysfunctional and Ballardian strangeness," writes the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. "It is a place where one important person's guilt infects an entire society with a creeping nervous breakdown, at once intensified and yet camouflaged by a notional belief in aesthetic nonconformism and provocative performance art.

jenkins


wilder

Meet Ruben Östlund, Director Of The Newly-Crowned Palme D'Or Winner, 'The Square' – Cannes
via Deadline

Ruben Östlund is riding high this week, as the newly-crowned winner of the Palme d'Or for his latest film, The Square, which premiered in Cannes a week last Saturday. It's a continuation of themes Östlund explored in his last film, Force Majeure, about the burden of human intelligence and societal propriety inasmuch as it contradicts with our more base desires. But with laughs.

In The Square, Claes Bang plays Christian, a well-to-do artistic director at a contemporary art museum in Stockholm, as he prepares to mount the titular installation, in which a square of light is installed in the museum's courtyard. An inscription around it reads, "The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it, we all share equal rights and obligations." And yet, as he's mugged on his way into work one day when attempting to intervene in what he believes to be a fraught dispute, he spirals down a complicated moral black hole, forced to reckon with his class, his social standing, and his own insecurities.

The film also stars Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West, and, in one of its most incendiary scenes, the brilliant Terry Notary, best known for his work on the motion capture behind the Planet of the Apes rebooted series, alongside Andy Serkis.

Majeure won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, ahead of BAFTA and Globe nominations for Best Foreign Language Film. With a Palme d'Or in tow, we can expect much more to come from The Square, which is being distributed by Magnolia Pictures. I sat down with Östlund a few days after his film premiered to find out more.

Like Force Majeure, The Square seems to be a film interested in the disconnect between what we believe and what we do. How did it come to life?

Yeah, the conflict between our instinct and our intellect. It generated because I was making a film called Play and I read through court files because it was inspired by robberies that took place in the city where I live. These really young boys were robbing other young boys in a mall. When I read the court files I could see that on very, very few occasions adults interacted or tried to help the kids. And the kids didn't ask for help.

I talked to my father about this—and this story actually became a scene in the film—because my father told me that when he was six years old, and he was brought up in the '50s, his parents put an address tag around his neck and sent him into the streets of Stockholm to play. A six-year-old boy in central Stockholm, all by himself. But it was so obvious that, at that time, you looked at other adults as someone that would help your children if they were in trouble. Today we tend to look at other adults as potential threats to our children.

And when I was dealing with this, they also started to build the first gated communities in Sweden. A gated community is a very aggressive way of saying, "We are not taking responsibility for what's on the outside; we look on that as a threat." So in this context, me and a film producer friend of mine, Kalle Boman, we came up with the idea that we should create a symbolic place where we are reminded of our common responsibility.

And we were invited to a museum—the Vandalorum design museum in Värnamo, Sweden—to do an exhibition about something, and we did an exhibition about this. They built the first Square, and now there are actually two other cities in Norway that have built Squares in their cities.

I didn't realize until after that the Square idea was out there in the real world.

Actually, it's celebrating two years now, the Square in Värnamo. It has become a small movement there. People are using it as a gathering point, couples have been engaged in it, and there have been physically handicapped people that have had a benefit taken away from them, and they went and protested the community that took their money away from them in the Square. So in many ways, it has become a small movement in that city.

Why do you think it takes an installation like this for us to engage with sensibilities we all believe in to begin with?

For me, it was a way of breaking the Bystander Effect. We are herd animals, so we get scared when things happen. We have to be reminded, "It's actually me that should do something." And it's as easy as a traffic sign. Civilization is built on agreements between human beings. These roads have pedestrian crossings, and it's a very simple agreement: here, the car driver should be careful and stop for pedestrians. And of course, you can create new agreements. As we started thinking about this, we realized that we all want to look at ourselves as rational and intellectual, but we have to be reminded to act in a certain way.

In Force Majeure, you questioned the fight-or-flight response of a man who witnesses the start of an avalanche, and then the human fall-out when his partner realizes he didn't think about her or his kids. With The Square, the canvas is broader still, and there's commentary on the world of contemporary art, social commentary, family commentary. Was it all fertile ground as the puzzle pieces started coming together?

I think for me it was a very hard film to write, and it was a hard film to make. How do you feel about the topic that—like the PR guys say in the film—everyone agrees on these values of the Square, so why should I get engaged with it? But for me, it was the moment when I realized I wanted to tell the story on two levels, so to speak. One, on an individual level, when you're practicing your life, trying to deal with morality issues in what you meet in the streets and your family. And the other layer was, for me, those topics on more of a societal level, and attacking the media climate a little bit, and attacking the art world that is supposed to deal with the ideas raised by these topics, and commenting on what we have to deal with as human beings.

I spent a lot of time traveling around, going to contemporary art museums, when I was writing the script. Every time I ended up in a different city I'd visit the art museum to see what was going on there. I must say, it's very hard to tell the difference between them. You know, they have this piece of sign in neon, and they have these big pieces of metal standing in the middle of the room, or whatever. I felt a little bit like how Duchamp must have felt when he put a urinal in a museum. Then it was a provocation, but today it's not. It's like a ritual or a convention that is just repeating itself. It has lost the connection with what's going on in the outside world.

But, I mean, for me the film could take place in the cinema world also. You need to criticize these fields and you need to criticize your own position as a director. If I scratch the surface, do I have the content or am I just playing a role?

There's a layer in the film that's very much about whether we are as special as individuals as we'd each like to believe.

I saw a speech from a very interesting sociological professor who was describing what a Swede is. He was employing a triangle, and he put the state at the top, the individual on the left, and the family on the right. He then plotted where to find America, Germany, and Sweden on that triangle; where you put your trust is what the triangle was all about. I've lived in all three of those countries for quite a while. So Americans put their trust between the individual and the family. And the Germans put it between the family and the state. But Swedes put their trust between the individual and the state, and it really points something out: we are super individualistic, but at the same time we have a great belief in this common project that is the state. It was an "aha" experience when I saw this triangle.

Do you think that has changed over time?

Yeah. I mean, take, for example, the thing with the gated communities. I think that we, as a species, are very upset when we see an imbalance. When we see inequality; when we see poverty. We really get provoked by that. So I still think that we are definitely caring about each other, but it's also not how we're building cities. The main idea with cities today is, "go to this place; consume." There's a thing called hostile design, where they build benches that are at such an angle that they're uncomfortable to sit on for too long? They put spikes in the entrances to buildings so homeless people can't sleep there. I think that Marx actually did quite a good analysis on how the economic system is affecting us, and I think it's very much about that.

I think you can look at different cultures and the varying levels of trust there, too. In Sweden, just to make a comparison about this, if you have a baby trolley with a baby in it, and you're going to a cafeteria, then you can leave that baby trolley outside the cafeteria when you're inside drinking your coffee. When you tell that to Americans or other Europeans, they're like, "What? That's crazy." But there's a very strong argument in Scandinavian society that you don't steal a child. And still, you would never leave your purse outside the cafeteria, because if it gets stolen, then it's on you for being stupid.

Terry Notary plays a performance artist who disrupts a black tie gala dinner by behaving like an ape. He physically harasses a woman as everyone sits motionless. By comparison, the lead character, Christian's, indiscretions aren't nearly as extreme and yet he's punished for them.

Well, I think for me, Christian will have no problem to continue and get a new job and work on after the film ends. But still, the problems on the streets outside are still there. So to put them next to each other was an idea, of course. But I didn't think much of it like that. I wanted him to be like one of the audiences in the Grand Théâtre Lumière [Cannes' primary screen]. That was actually an idea in the making of the film, that we would screen this in the Lumière, in front of a tuxedo-clad audience, and they'd be looking at a tuxedo-clad man digging in the trash.

Were you tempted to unleash Terry Notary in the screening?

[laughs] Actually we had a great idea for the red carpet, that he should come with his arm extensions. But the problem was that the arm extensions got stuck in lost luggage at the airport, and they arrived two minutes after we had stepped into the car. But we had the idea of creating a PR stunt on the red carpet.

Had you written those scenes into the film before you met him?

I did actually write the scene before. I was googling monkey imitation, or actor imitating monkey, and there was this video that Terry had done for Planet of the Apes, where he did a demonstration. It's fantastic. He's like, "OK, so this is what a chimpanzee looks like when they're walking," and it's like, yeah, it's a chimpanzee. And then there's the gorilla. Even a child could see he was the best at imitating an ape. You strip acting back to a very, very basic level. So we called him and asked if he'd do it.

You also cast Dominic West and Elisabeth Moss, who speak English even though the film is predominantly in Swedish. How did they come to be involved?

I am with WME in America and they very much wanted me to do an English-language film. I thought that it was important that I put The Square in a Scandinavian context, because of how we look at Scandinavia and its social democratic background and history. But then I started to cast, and I cast in Norway, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki. I went to London because of BAFTA, and then I arranged a couple of meetings and did some improvisations with quite a few English-speaking and American actors in London. Elisabeth Moss I had seen before in Mad Men. I didn't know Dominic West's work, really. But with both of them I really, really loved how intelligent they were as actors. I was scared, you know, of working in English, because I thought maybe I would lose the nuances and things like that.

So was this a toe in the water for more work in English?

Maybe.


Robyn

You go,  Ruben! Make swedish film great again. 

jenkins

no English subtitles but most of it is in English


Jeremy Blackman

I will definitely see this, but I still don't entirely understand the premise...

Drenk

My soul will suffer from the akwardness but I am ready for it.

EDIT: The premise seems to be the same as in Force Majeure: men are ridiculous. But in the art world.
Ascension.

wilder

In theaters October 27th


Just Withnail

After loving pretty much every film Ruben has done, short or long, it pains me to say that this didn't work for me at all. It seems to go for a mix of the intensely focused character assasination of Force Majeure and the stand-alone episodic form of his earlier films, but ending up just muddled.

It goes in way too many different directions, seemingly wishing to make a kind of cosmology of art world hypocrisy, but at the same time every single scene seems to communicate the same small sliver of capital T Themes, and it all rather ends up feeling reductive rather than expansive. It's meanings seem set from frame one.

Östlund has always been great at delving deep into situations, but here the situations take over so much that the whole fell apart. Elisabeth Moss' character almost seems to be completely different people from scene to scene. That excellent scene with her that they used as a promotional clip, that got me so excited for the film, completely lost it's power in the context of the rest of it.


SMALL SPOILERS


Ditto with the monkey-actor scene. The film is extremely unsubtle in making it's points about human behavior. Östlund mentioned in the Q&A after the film that his film is partly about the lack of responsibility being taken in public spaces, and in this scene, the point is made by everyone eventually just succumbing to the monkey-man's behavior and bowing their heads in submission as he goes on being outrageous and eventually harrasses a woman. Only after the harrasment has gone on for a ridiculous amount of time does one man try to stop him, at which point a bunch of other people also dare to intervene. This all seems to me to be either cheap symbolism or completely unbelievable behavior. The whole scene seems to me to be constructed only to make this simple point, in an overly obvious way. And when one doesn't believe in the point, and there's no ambiguity or mystery, the scene just ends up empty. This was sadly indicative of many scenes in the film: simple symbols or message hammered home.

jenkins

Quote from: Just Withnail on October 18, 2017, 09:19:34 AM
And when one doesn't believe in the point, and there's no ambiguity or mystery, the scene just ends up empty. This was sadly indicative of many scenes in the film: simple symbols or message hammered home.

this is how it works, isn't it? this is the relationship that develops between the movie and the viewer. you know, in movie land this is called, what, suspension of disbelief. and sometimes that shit can't be suspended, i feel ya. i'm wondering if the structure here was more parabolic than cohesive, but honestly sometimes i get worn down trying to say "let's look at this way instead" and etc.

today i'm not in the mood to defend this movie i haven't seen. i enjoyed your post Just Withnail.

Just Withnail

My problem was mostly not feeling like I was watching people, but cogs in Östlund's machinery, because of scene after scene of ubelievable (but often hilarious, it has to be said!) behavior, that boiled almost every scene into a very small set of human behavioral patterns, carefully chosen to make his points. Then again, I guess he does the same in Force Majeure? I need to re-watch both.

I think I just got worn out being hammered over the head - but as I mention a little below the spoiler warning, my thoughts on the film are still evolving.

SMALL SPOILERS

After thinking for about half a second I take back that entire last paragraph. In these Weinstein times it's growing on me as actually extremely plausible behavior, with the exception of it being the men who take action at the end of the scene.

I think on the next viewing that will be more powerful for me, as an isolated moment, and might tip the symbolism for me from cheap and heavy-handed to powerful and heavy-handed. I'm not too hopeful about the rest of the film.

wilder

I've been trying to write something about this for a few days and can't seem to gather my thoughts. I probably need to see it again. I liked the movie a lot, but it's not without issues...


SPOILERS

First of all, it's hilarious.

One thing that didn't work so well for me was that the comeuppance Christian is supposed to be experiencing just didn't hit home as hard as I wished it had, and that lack of a really emotional punch kept the film fairly distant for me in a way that reinforces JW's assessment of the characters being "cogs in Östlund's machine". I needed more of an investment in seeing Christian's personal downfall for it to resonate.

It seems like the movie places all of the hypocrisy of the art world on Christian's shoulders, which he's not solely responsible for...so that makes the connection to the ideas about social responsibility sort of loose and murky in a way that allows you to analyze them, but not feel them. The anxiety-inducing rides of The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Good Time may have been aiming for more pure panic attack mode than cringe brought about by cowardly behavior, but I've been spoiled by them, nonetheless.

I'm debating if collapsing Christian and the artist into one character would help solve this problem, or if separating creator and the presenter/distributor of the art produced is necessary to make the movie's point about societal checks and balances and safety nets...

Quote from: Just Withnail on October 18, 2017, 09:19:34 AMDitto with the monkey-actor scene. The film is extremely unsubtle in making it's points about human behavior. Östlund mentioned in the Q&A after the film that his film is partly about the lack of responsibility being taken in public spaces, and in this scene, the point is made by everyone eventually just succumbing to the monkey-man's behavior and bowing their heads in submission as he goes on being outrageous and eventually harrasses a woman. Only after the harrasment has gone on for a ridiculous amount of time does one man try to stop him, at which point a bunch of other people also dare to intervene. This all seems to me to be either cheap symbolism or completely unbelievable behavior. The whole scene seems to me to be constructed only to make this simple point, in an overly obvious way.

I felt there was a little bit more going on here. The ape-man scene is certainly revealing the groupthink dynamic, but before his entrance, it's also announced that the animal has an "instinct for fear" — and it's very telling, the particular people he goes after: he attacks those who have a fear of being found out as poseurs (such as the artist run out of the room), people who position themselves as noble but propagate misery by allowing illusions of progress to take the place of real solutions to issues of social responsibility (did that make any sense? It's hard to talk about this when the metaphors between the art world and society at large aren't 1-1, as in splitting Christian and the artist into two different characters). I agree the scene is repetitive, as Christian acknowledges the same thing when he agrees to fudge the artist's ruined work he knows is bullshit instead of allowing his co-worker to call the museum's insurance, but I admired the creative cinematic situation the scene creates. It's so fun to watch!

The very end was bad. Truly hammering the point home. The part with Christian, rain-soaked, confessing into his cell phone and later literally going door to door apologizing to the tenants of that apartment building...ugh. If Östlund was trying to prolong Christian's humiliation by making him confront the tenants, it didn't seem to work - he's never met them before, their reactions aren't going off any prior expectation of his character. And the movie is long, anyway. Could have chopped 20 minutes.

One question: why does Elizabeth Moss have her own monkey?

Drenk

I haven't seen it yet because it's long, but Force Majeure is clearly Östlund's putting his characters a guinea pigs through his experiments. That's why I am not sure I want that for more than two hours—but I am curious...
Ascension.

Something Spanish

I'm in agreement with wilder's and JW's criticisms, the film starts feeling very artificial once Christian's predicaments escalate, and it gets very, very tedious with the same point being hammered in act after act. It was so hard to sit through the last half-hour and I was doubly upset having driven farther than I usually would to catch the last showing before it left theaters. The monkey scene was another blatant metaphor for the filmmaker's point and was just as obvious and corny as Martin's bite in Sacred Deer, only that scene was a few seconds and this went on and on. The flick blows.

wilder

UK Blu-ray from Artificial Eye on May 14, 2018