The Square
Ruben Östlund (2017)
As suggested in Force Majeure (2014) and now proved at greater length in The Square, the writer-director Ruben Östlund is a decidedly smug misanthrope. He has a low opinion of other people and, in making that clear, seems very pleased with himself. The main character in Östlund’s new film is Christian (Claes Bang), head curator of the (fictional) X-Royal museum in Stockholm. The title refers to an artwork recently acquired to headline an exhibition in the cobblestoned courtyard of the former royal palace that the museum occupies. The creator of the piece, represented by a small metallic square, is an Argentinian called Lola Arias[1], whose artist’s statement describes it as a ‘sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations’. It’s soon clear that Östlund means to satirise both the modish values of the art world and the hypocrisies of professedly liberal capitalism. An early sequence shows a military statue, being removed to make way for the new acquisition, detaching from its crane harness and crashing down. Inside the museum, the exhibits include a room filled with apparently identical cones of gravel. Outside on the street, immigrant beggars are ignored by well-heeled passers-by with eyes only for their smartphones.
Östlund’s prompt exposure of the fatuity of Lola Arias’s statement as a description of a modern European democracy whets the viewer’s appetite for iconoclasm. I thought for a while the film was going to be cynical enough to reveal the hungry and homeless figures to be part of the X-Royal’s promotional campaign for The Square – especially since these people look artificially placed in the street scenes. The gravel cones seemed such an antique idea of up-itself conceptual art that I assumed there must be more to them than that. I was wrong on both counts. The gravel ends up vacuumed by one of the cleaners (a comic accident that confirms the cones are rubbish). The have-nots really are that – though publicity for The Square does turn out to be an important part of the plot. The advertising agency commissioned to promote the exhibition recommends, for maximum impact, an apparently shocking contradiction of the bland humanitarian message of the artist’s statement. They devise a video in which an impoverished young girl – white, blonde-haired, holding a kitten – is blown up in an explosion. The strapline is ‘How much inhumanity does it take before we access your humanity?’ The video has the desired effect of going viral but generates outrage from the media, religious leaders and the public. The PR disaster leads to Christian’s eventual resignation.
Östlund is doubly hard on his anti-hero. It’s not enough for Christian to be so absorbed in his insulated, elitist job that he ignores what’s happening in the real world. His professional downfall is the result of unprofessional negligence: he hasn’t the time to watch the promotional video before approving it because he’s preoccupied with matters outside work. On his way to the museum one day, Christian is the victim of a confidence trick that leaves him without his smartphone and wallet. (As in Force Majeure, a smartphone catalyses the laying bare of Östlund’s modern-man protagonist’s moral deficiency.) Michael (Christopher Laessø), a junior work colleague, tracks the phone to an apartment building in a rough neighbourhood. He encourages Christian, after work and a few drinks, to write a threatening anonymous letter to all occupants of the building, demanding the return of the wallet and phone. When Christian hesitates, Michael tells him not to be ‘so Swedish’ and the two put together a text, make copies of it and drive to the apartment block. Christian expects Michael to put the notice through letter-boxes but Michael tells Christian to do this himself. The anonymous letter instructs the thief to hand in the stolen goods to a 7-Eleven convenience store/eatery close to the museum. A couple of days later, a package for Christian arrives there. It contains the phone and the wallet, from which no money has been removed.
Christian is delighted by the success of the plan but the next day a second package arrives at the same destination. Having agreed to pick it up on Christian’s behalf, Michael is confronted in the 7-Eleven by a furiously angry boy (Elijandro Edouard). The boy claims that, thanks to Christian’s letter, his parents now believe that he’s a thief. He demands an apology; if he doesn’t get it, he’ll ‘create chaos’ for Christian. By now, Christian is also involved with Anne (an amusingly precise Elisabeth Moss), an American journalist who interviews him at the start of the film and with whom he goes to bed after they meet again at a party. A few days later, she turns up at the museum to make clear that she’s after more than casual sex with him, a desire that is not reciprocated. These extramural activities distract Christian from looking at the media advisers’ sensational video before signing it off.
The Square’s force as cultural critique depends on its taking place in an actual world. The acting style is predominantly naturalistic and the physical settings realistic. Self-confident and cavalier Ruben Östlund, however, takes the view that, because his intentions are satirical and his film includes surrealist elements, he can dispense with credibility, or resort to it, just as it suits him. For example, it’s unlikely that Christian, at an especially high-pressure time in his high-profile job, would be bothered to adopt Michael’s leafleting plan in the first place; even more unlikely that he’d meekly accept his subordinate’s insistence that he scurry from floor to floor of the apartment block while Michael waits in his boss’s expensive car. But Christian’s furtive leafleting makes for a tense, spooky sequence – as does Michael’s car park vigil, with shadowy, menacing, envious locals gathering round the vehicle. Christian has to behave the way he does in order for the story to move forward – but what impels his behaviour hardly connects with the ethical bankruptcy of the world he represents, and which Östlund is out to skewer.
The Square’s political point of view is soon clear and the film lasts 151 minutes. It therefore relies on technical flair and the impact of individual scenes to hold our interest – and succeeds in doing that (though it’s still unnecessarily long). There are many attention-getting images on the screen (the DP is Fredrik Wenzel). Christian’s euphoria in light of the the first 7-Eleven pick-up takes him and us by surprise, and is all the more enjoyable for that. Another strong, if protracted, sequence is a post-coital power struggle between him and Anne: she persistently offers to dispose of his used condom; he persistently refuses, for fear that she wants to keep his semen for future use. Earlier on, Christian says a few words to a gathering of museum donors before handing over to the chef who explains lunch arrangements to them. As soon as this minion starts to speak, the audience loses interest and drifts away: the chef yells at them. This startling moment is also, perhaps, the film’s funniest: you wonder briefly if Östlund is going to take a more imaginative direction – if the chef’s refusal to take shit from the museum’s ruling class heralds the start of a revolution throughout the system. It doesn’t, even if it somewhat foreshadows the highlight of The Square.
An X-Royal black-tie fund-raiser at which a performance artist called Oleg Rogozjin terrorises the guests is by far the most compelling episode (not just because, for this audience-participation-phobic viewer, it was such a nightmare). A voice on the public address system welcomes the assembly to ‘the jungle’ and announces the entrance of the powerfully built Oleg (Terry Notary), whose ape-like noises and movement, and bestial behaviour, soon wipe the amused smiles from the wealthy diners’ faces. (Oleg’s own face has appeared previously on a giant screen in the museum, implying that he’s an installation there.) This relentless scene features spectacular physical acting from Terry Notary (who has done simian work in Planet of the Apes films etc). Yet the climax to the sequence and its aftermath prove to be further examples of the obviousness of Ruben Östlund’s ideas and the inconsistency of his approach.
As the apeman drags a woman by her hair towards the exit, a posse of tuxedoed diners intervenes and overpowers him. When the going gets tough, says Östlund, men revert to the law of the jungle (except that Christian is so contemptible that he watches Oleg’s performance impotently and doesn’t participate in the fightback). Perhaps Oleg is killed – the next shot, at any rate, shows a large object wrapped in plastic sheeting lying in what appears to be a waste disposal area. Whether or not Oleg survives, there are no consequences to the fund-raiser mayhem to add to the museum management’s increasingly embarrassed situation. There are no questions about the X-Royal’s security staffing; no complaints from donors or even from the Julian Schnabel-inspired artist (Dominic West) who flounces out of the dining room to avoid further humiliation by Oleg. It would be inconvenient to Östlund to have to bother with such follow-up: the sequence, once it’s over, seems meant to be interpreted as much metaphorically as an actual event. It’s possible to read Oleg’s performance as a representation of Östlund’s own épater les bourgeois intentions although this really doesn’t hold water. Perhaps the most disagreeable aspect of the film’s smugness is its awareness that a large part of its audience will espouse values not unlike the ones it excoriates – and that, while we’ll pretend The Square is disturbingly thought-provoking, we’ll take the criticism on the chin and (dare we say!) chuckle at it.
If The Square ends up reinforcing the complacency of a typical viewer, does that make Ruben Östlund feel he’s failed in what he set out to do? Perhaps not – perhaps he considers his target audience (in more ways than one) as incorrigible, the way Luis Buñuel saw the characters he mocked in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (which the closing shots of Force Majeure brought to mind). But whereas Buñuel expressed through what he put on the screen a past-caring acceptance that the Western European middle classes would carry on regardless, Östlund makes Christian pay – repeatedly – without seriously challenging the like-minded audience that watches, if not from Östlund’s lofty, censorious viewpoint, at least from a safe distance. The Square would be a more telling and disturbing film if the protagonist extricated himself and didn’t learn his lesson.
This would also have exploited more interestingly Claes Bang’s qualities in the central role. Bang’s quietly magnetic performance is one of the few likeable things about The Square. He holds the screen without ever overdoing things; Christian retains our interest in large part thanks to Bang’s making him more sympathetic than the script suggests. Behind his cool arrogance, designer-stubbly good looks and chic spectacles, there’s something sheepish and uncertain about Christian. In plot terms, he’s on the receiving end from an early stage: an eventual reversal of fortune would have made a change, as well as a point. It could also have pulled the rug from under the feet of those of us who’ve to some extent kept faith with Bang’s Christian. Östlund feels for his protagonist only in the press conference in which he resigns. Now that Christian’s fall from grace is official, Östlund can switch his contemptuous attention to the media. While some of the journalists at the press conference condemn Christian for the tasteless, controversial video, others decry his decision to step down as a form of self-censorship.
The only shift in feeling in The Square occurs with the arrival on the scene, about halfway through, of Christian’s daughters (Lise Stephenson Engström and Lilianne Mardon). They join the film in a scene that’s typical of Ostlund in being immediately striking but, on a moment’s reflection, nonsensical. Home alone and increasingly spooked by the consequences of his earlier actions, Christian is alarmed by the sound of someone trying to get in the door of his apartment. The banging on the door isn’t accompanied by anyone’s voice – this makes for an unnerving few moments. When Christian opens the door, his two young daughters burst in: they’re deep into a noisy argument with each other – one that was inaudible to their father when he moved anxiously to listen at the door. The girls tell Christian that ‘Mummy said it was your turn to pick us up’. So he’s a negligent father too – though, from this point onwards, his daughters are with him for the duration and their mother isn’t mentioned again. The girls’ rowdy first entrance turns out to be uncharacteristic: as understandably miserable as their counterparts in Force Majeure, they wear a default expression of silent accusation of their father. The what-sort-of-a-world-are-we-making-for-our-children look is an expression too of the trite thinking at the heart (if that’s the word) of The Square.
These children come off better, though, than the young boy who threatened chaos. When he comes to Christian’s apartment and kicks up a racket (Elijandro Edouard brings some welcome vocal vigour to proceedings), the boy ends up being pushed away by Christian and falling downstairs. Inside the apartment so noticeably soundproofed when his daughters were yelling outside it, the guilty Christian hears the boy whimpering for help from downstairs – the fortissimo noise of migrants seeking refuge in Europe being let down by the continent. Rooting desperately through trashcans outside the building for a piece of paper containing the boy’s phone number, Christian locates it remarkably quickly. He gets no reply on the number so records an apologetic video message but his contrition comes too late. In the final scenes of the film, he goes to the apartment building where the boy lived. Another resident (with an evidently comprehensive knowledge of all the building’s residents) tells Christian he hasn’t seen the boy around for a while …
Immediately before this, Christian, with his younger daughter, attends a school gymnastic display in which the elder daughter participates. This routine, executed within a square performing area, depends on teamwork – on the young gymnasts’ mutual trust and support, without which they would fall and the structure they form collapse. This could be either numbingly obvious symbolism or another instance of Östlund’s merely clever patterning of images and details. A man with Tourette’s syndrome repeatedly interrupts an interview with the Dominic West character; Anne imitates this man as part of her seduction of Christian. Anne shares her hotel suite with a seemingly house-trained ape that surreally complements the homo sapiens performance artist who wreaks jungle havoc. Östlund is clearly doing something right – or smart, anyway. The Square has made money and won prizes, most notably the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, a notorious point of intersection between artistic effort and conspicuous wealth and privilege. Talk about feeding the hand that bites you. That award gives Ruben Östlund all the more reason to smirk.
18 March 2018
[1] Also presumably fictional – though she shares her name with an actual Argentinian director and performance artist. According to recent pieces online, the real Lola Arias is not best pleased by the coincidence.