The Square Review | VIFF 2017

<p><span class&equals;"itemprop">Ruben Östlund has attempted to break down the walls of society with his last two films&period; <em>Force Majeure<&sol;em> tried to make us look at the power dynamics of a family in disarray after a cowardly act&period; <em>The Square <&sol;em>attacks any sense of empathy we must have for each other&period; <em>The Square<&sol;em> is a new art piece installed in place of a historical statue&period; The installation piece represents a place where you can feel safe&period; There are no worries and there is nothing to be afraid of&period; This piece was actually inspired by an installation the director and his <em>Force Majeure<&sol;em> producer Kalle Boman in a Swedish museum in 2014&period; Their artist statement was &&num;8220&semi;The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring&period; Within it we all share equal rights and obligations&period;&&num;8221&semi; But don&&num;8217&semi;t worry&comma; they&&num;8217&semi;re just trying to comment on so-called &&num;8220&semi;safe spaces&&num;8221&semi;&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Claes Bang stars as the head museum curator&comma; Christian&period; His progressive worldview is often at odds with the people and situations around him&period; In the opening scene&comma; Christian is interviewed by reporter Anne played by Elisabeth Moss&period; She&&num;8217&semi;s there to interview him about his new and revolutionary piece&period; But Anne doesn&&num;8217&semi;t seem to get the point&period; She asks questions about what it&&num;8217&semi;s like to run a museum&comma; Christian responds with an eloquent answer&period; Anne still doesn&&num;8217&semi;t get it&period; Christian spends the rest of the film trying to give meaning to his art as people attempt to make sense of it with no answer&period; <em>The Square <&sol;em>asks interesting questions throughout&period; The way art is interpreted and answered is part of a question we still haven&&num;8217&semi;t answered culturally&period; The major problem is that <span class&equals;"itemprop">Östlund is too busy worrying about what political correctness will do to us as a society&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130871" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130871" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130871" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;24182119&sol;MV5BZGRhYTVhNWUtM2YzNy00NmJkLTg2NjQtZGY3NDgzZGE3ZmJlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjk1Njg5NTA&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;-e1508883644140&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The Square &lowbar; 1" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"519" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130871" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;The Square&comma; Magnolia Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>While my personal political leanings are progressive&comma; I wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t have a problem with the movie making a case for its themes&period; I have a problem with <em>The Square <&sol;em>not sticking to one side of the issue&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a sad comparison to be made here with <em>South Park&period; <&sol;em>Neither production ever feels the need to directly go after one thing&comma; instead pointing a finger at every side of the issue without landing on any sort of acknowledgment on where the conversation should be headed&period; In a particularly nauseous moment of the film&comma; Dominic West&&num;8217&semi;s artist Julian is sitting down for a Q&amp&semi;A&period; In the audience&comma; a man suffering from Tourette&&num;8217&semi;s syndrome starts yelling out profanities directed at the moderator&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a conversation about what should be done with the man&period; He disrupts the conversation&comma; but should he be removed just because of a biological issue&quest; The film definitely leans to one side but feels to cowardly to come to a conclusion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>The Square <&sol;em>revolves around a series of connected vignettes that address the hypocrisies of our societal attitudes&period; Along with <em>South Park&comma; <&sol;em><span class&equals;"itemprop">Östlund&&num;8217&semi;s film would pair perfectly with an episode of <&sol;span><em>Curb Your Enthusiasm <&sol;em>if the episode decided not to tie itself together into something more interesting than the sum of its parts&period; Little vignettes come together to make some sort of statement about whatever it wants to talk about at the time&period; <em>The Square <&sol;em>has little to say about the subjects it takes on&comma; it just pretends that it does&period; While the writing and directing are sub-par&comma; to be generous&comma; the acting is very well done&comma; especially from lead Claes Bang&period; His reactions to the absurd are excellent and he drives a lot of the comedy into something that actually becomes funny because of his performance&period; In spite of <span class&equals;"itemprop">Östlund&comma; the cast bring this film just out of the trash heap it most certainly belongs in&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130872" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130872" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130872" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;24182234&sol;MV5BZmYyNjBkZDItYzI2Zi00MzM5LTg3ZTktNjk3MjYwOTE2NTIzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjk1Njg5NTA&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;-e1508883726889&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The Square &lowbar; 2" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"519" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130872" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;The Square&comma; Magnolia Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Aside from the saving grace of the performances&comma; <em>The Square <&sol;em>somehow churns out one of the most engaging scenes of the year&period; A banquet is being held in celebration of the opening of The Square&period; But the artists behind the event have something in store for the evening&period; Oleg &lpar;Terry Notary&rpar; is unleashed upon the guests acting as an ape&period; The audience is told that this is performance art and there is nothing to be afraid of&period; Oleg takes offense to Julian laughing at the whole spectacle&period; Oleg challenges the uppity nature of the evening&period; I don&&num;8217&semi;t want to spoil the experience&comma; but <span class&equals;"itemprop">Östlund manages to say more in this ten-minute sequence than he does the entire 144 minute runtime&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While this film as not as much of an abject failure as <em>Force Majeure&comma; The Square <&sol;em>is one moment and a few great performances away from getting there&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a great hypocrisy behind an artist who establishes art installations and movies about the way society can break down over one small incident making a movie about the way we treat each other&comma; including the poor&comma; disabled&comma; and disenfranchised&period; At the end of the day&comma; <span class&equals;"itemprop">Östlund wants to comment on the issues while essentially saying he feels for them&&num;8230&semi;from a distance&period; Is he condemning himself or is he condemning the people asking for help&quest; In the end&comma; I don&&num;8217&semi;t think it matters either way&period; The director would rather make a thin joke out of the situation that truly make a statement&period;<&sol;span><&sol;p>&NewLine;