The prizes, with which the biography of "The Square" has, sound like this - Cannes '17 - Golden Palm, Vulcan Austin '17 Best Film Award. To be exact, however, "The Square" has four equal sides and here are they: In one of the interviews that the main character Christian (Kles Bang) gives, he says roughly the following - the question is whether the ladies bag placed in this exhibition hall is becoming art. When I first passed my eyes, I felt the vague hope that I could see a foreign relative of Sorrento's "The Great Beauty", but then I quickly realized that these two films were not from a common conceptual family. Even without criticism or reproach - I can say - even on the contrary. Because, unlike Paolo Sorentino, Ruben Östlund puts art in the place of the defendant, and the accuser is, as usual, social injustice.
The accusation is short - hypocrisy. And as a whole, I do not know how much the question of the meaning and nature of art is not as shabby as the issue of egg and hen, and so on. Christian is a curator at the X-Royal Museum, who, as we see, is an obvious institution for modern artistic life. Surrounded by designer objects, staring at the world through slightly extravagant glasses with red frames, and self-representing something like the modernist retrospection of the Greek καλοκαγαθία in a male look /this is ideal and comes from Plato. Literally, it is a beautiful and virtuous, harmonious combination of bodily and moral beauty/ , Christian discovers exhibitions, listens to PR concepts, and gets bored with style. One side of the square reaches exactly where it is - whether it is not the only thing he owns. Slipping from one layer to the next, the tape gradually mixes several topics that are scattered over time and good cinematography rather cyclically than sequentially. Thus, against the background of art history or rather the falsity trial, gradually Christian Layer begins to show his human and too human nature, which, it turns out, is capable, though without much tenderness, to have sex. This, of course, is a joke, apart from the fact that it is the truth itself. Sometime in the 120th minute, we'll see him cry because he can not cope with his two daughters, and then we'll find out that he may even know the name of the woman he last spent the night with. On the background of these footage, the shadow of the animal is measured. Yostuld asked several times about it, but in this line it is not the socially catalysed anger, namely hypocrisy, because Christian organizes the exhibition "The Square", which should be devoted to empathy, and at the same time perfectly rehears the history of falsehood in their personal relations.
Several well-styled dialogues and footage, whose choreography is so natural that they look almost documentary, bring us out of the space of the Royal Museum and Christian Designer's House, and send us to the square and then to the block of the poor who in this film, alas, are mainly immigrants. Christian crosses the square several times on the way to the museum, from where the furious screams of a crazy "Who Will Save Me?" Somewhere in a similar, well-played street performance, he finds himself stolen - he suddenly finds himself missing the wallet and the phone. Whether this is a story of vengeance and the apology I do not know, but I think there is something else to show on this subject. Despite socially realistic footage (as opposed to those dedicated to family and art), I personally have the feeling of a cliche on which the tape is descending, a thin ice that, I don't know why, is not pierced. Still, there is a pretty successful image, and he is an angry little boy whose voice is not really childish and he is looking for his excuse. The film successfully juggles with the irony like the frames of the really angry ones, which alternate with those of the failed PR campaign at "The Square" exhibition, which should be devoted to tolerance and empathy.
The whole tape is shot dynamically - tracking Christian's walks here and there. He watches the world through his slightly extravagant red frames, and then he is left without glasses, and very rarely without shoes. It can be said that satire is stretched over time rather than the nature of the genre, but on the other hand, the slight eccentricity enhances the social engagement of the film and manages to get it out of the danger of cliché. Ultimately, the best move is to bring the story down to the level of childhood, because perhaps it is the most expelling and terrible court. The good thing is that justice is always for everyone, and in this sense, Östlund successfully puts us on all sides of the square, and eventually even pushes us into it so that we can not blow up but humble ourselves.
