INTERPRETING THE IRREVERENCE OF RUBEN ÖSTLUND'S THE SQUARE (2017)

 

 THE SQUARE

by 

Ruben Östlund

‘The Square’ is a wildly ambitious film that gets better on rewatch, given the scope of it, it's hard to grasp everything on one go. Each scene or episode is a unique habitat altogether, even though the consequences of the character’s previous actions crawl their way into the next one. Structurally it is almost congruent with Federico Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’, it can be viewed as a collection of a few vignettes, and the main character ‘Christian’ (played by Claes Bang) can be compared with the iconic gossip writer ‘Marcello’ (played by Marcello Mastroianni). Like Marcello an existential man of his times whose nights were spent traversing Rome in search of a “happy” life, Christian is a very interesting character as well even though he isn’t as determined as the former to find “happiness” or a “sweet life”. He rather is a modern-day existential mess who is confused about & haunted by the notion of being “politically correct”, striving to get through the ‘cut throat’ competition to survive in the present-day world and is struggling to keep the personality he projects afloat.

The film opens with a black screen while ‘Ave Maria’ is played in the background, it feels as if the mocking tone of the film is being set up by the time we see our main character Christian, the curator of ‘X-Royal Art Museum’ in Stockholm, taking a nap on his couch before an interview with Anne (played by Elisabeth Moss), an American journalist. He is not as presentable as he would like when we first see him just lying on a messy couch in a disorganised room, but soon grooms himself for the interview. From which we learn that he is a man who knows “what isn’t art” but even he finds it hard to put the abstract idea of it into words. It is a hilariously awkward premise, the interview, answers which Christian would have intended to be “deep” sound wacky. And the film asks one of it’s recurring questions: do we overcomplicate things? And as we follow Christian through the many episodes of his life throughout the film, and also get to witness other moments that take place in the museum, the film’s many themes start unfolding over the foundation of the aforementioned rhetorical question.

One of the subjects the film explicitly comments about in it’s initial parts is about the interpretation of matters and the appropriate action in the context of our contemporary society i.e, our understanding of the changing norm that is turning out to be more accepting (or at least trying to be so). The film’s strongest suit is the way it creates riotous situations using this phenomenon where people get conscious (or over conscious, rather) about the stereotypes that are starting to get obsolete and the lack of an idea to act appropriately in these changing time or simply our inability to be politically correct all the time. Take for example one of my favourite scenes where Julian (played by Dominic West), a renowned artist, is in a press meet explaining the inspiration for his art, and out of nowhere, a man starts abuses him and his female interviewer. They try to ignore him initially but he doesn’t stop, unfortunately, he turns to be uncontrollable. They are clearly offended but restrain themselves from reacting to him because it’s a press meet remember? They have an image to project and etiquette to follow. And by the time their tolerance reaches a threshold, the abuser’s wife, also in the crowd, reveals that the man is suffering from “Tourette’s disease”. All of a sudden he becomes the victim and the press sympathises with him. This sensational situational humour!

The film doesn't criticise the newfound importance of being politically correct but it presents the nuances and complexities of any situation, while it criticises the over-complication of things analogous to the "cutting edge" art that is the display in the museum and the elaborate, or far fetched interpretation of it: the "abstractness" that is lost in translation due to the infinitely possible idiosyncratic interpretations. At one point I wondered if everyone suffers from undiagnosed pareidolia to a varying degree. The film also has a lot to say about the economic disparity that exists in the same world as such sophisticated art-loving people, who donate millions for the preservation and exhibition of art, while the streets are filled with homeless refugees and beggars. "Do we overcomplicate things and overlook what is necessary?" What is even the point of such complication and sophistication if it does no one any good? The freakishly funny "monkey performance" scene is a dig at such people who ultimately "can not take real art", after all, one of the many facets of art is that it serves as a reflection of the nature and/or state of a culture or the society which practises such culture.

In the much later parts, the film focuses on the “political correctness vs free speech" paradox to comment on the hypocrisy of the media and its fetish for sensationalism. By media, I mean both mass media and us, the people who create & consume content on social media. The advertising committee which the museum hires comes up with a controversial ad that “breaks the stereotypes” and offers something that is completely unexpected, which blows everything out of proportion and is entirely pointless. In an attempt to advertise the new exhibit (The Square) in a “radicle” way to make sure that it becomes a viral internet sensation they end up advertising in a sense that is quite opposite to what actually was intended through that piece of work, they get carried away and end up doing something that is unacceptable. This particular sequence ties almost every theme of the film together. And is unsettling absurd but also kind of familiar with the content we are exposed to every day.

By the end, we learn that Christian is not different to any of us, a model of all such complexities and a “victim” of the ever-changing & pretentious world, who at the core wants to be loved by his daughters and be viewed as a righteous man. Even though there is no appreciable arc to him, he is still very relatable & real. The film with it’s unique paradigm questions the norm presents our awareness of it’s shortcomings and also our inability to act appropriately every single time. It is a satire on incomplete or misinterpretation of issues; such as racism, or sexual orientation, or feminism, etc; and an urge to forcefully project an “intellectual” or more “tolerant/accepting” personality through social media or exaggerated & over the top real actions that are awkward, inappropriate and inevitably more discriminating. It is an outright blast and more about how it makes us feel, a brilliantly narrated piece of cinema. One that is both implosive & explosive at the same time.