2 more reviews

1. ›"The Square" by Ruben Östlund - movie review@godflesh2933d

   Reality. In a Dublin gallery, there are no cunning sculptures, and the thoughts of George Bernard Shaw, who says "you use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul". Reality as a cinema. At a Swedish museum before an exhibition, a curator tries to explain to a journalist what art really is in conversation about the upcoming exhibition. The curator is a hero in the latest film by Swedish director Ruben Östlund , who, in an attempt to laugh at contemporary western European principles, turns the Square into a true piece of art. Ruben Östlund discovers the cinema, filming sketches, with which he was later admitted to Gothenburg to follow the cinema. He is known mainly from his previous project, becoming one of the favorites at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014 "Force Majeure". The action of the film is centered on an avalanche family, whereby the husband decides to seek personal salvation instead of being concerned about the security of his whole family. The film won the jury award. "The Square" manages to win the Golden Palm in 2017. His next film is expected in 2020, named "The Triangle of Sorrow". Geometric references are a coincidence, not a connection.

   

   The exhibition was at the beginning. Oh really.

   In 2014, Yostulnd co-produced with producer Kale Böhmann worked on an art installation at the private Swedish museum Vandalorum. What would the review be without mentioning "The Square" manifesto? Probably empty and unfinished. "The Square" is a shelter of trust and sharing. Within its borders, we all share the same rights and obligations. In fact, the idea of ​​the two was born by their curiosity what would happen if every city has a free zone where everyone can go and the rest are obliged to help. To be reminded of the possibility of taking responsibility. What Happens - Concerts, Marriage Suggestions. But also a place for protests; after shooting in a Swedish school students from the city gather together to be together there.

   Back to the movie

   Delicacy, northern cold, a significant dose of sarcasm, a repulsive reality. This is served in the atypical for the contemporary time tolerance of the content consumer 2 hours and 31 minutes. However, no moment of the film is empty and unnecessary or annoying. The action unfolds somewhat, but everything happens quickly. Layered stories that are entwined in an intriguing way so that there is no sense of general fragmentation and fragmentation. Cinematography goes hand in hand with the surreal events in history. Operator Fredrik Wenzel tells and does not need words. The sense of infinity, cyclicality, distance is transmitted through a series of techniques that create a sense of indecency, complementing and accentuating the abyss between the rich and the poor; civilized and uncivilized. Mastering is the way in which the problems of inequality and lack of care for the other are put in a society that educates and proudly achieves liberal values ​​and ideals; lost trust in the other; the inability to express and express sincere emotions in the era of triumphant individualism. It seems as though the rebuke of the cultural elite (in Sweden) will be in the focus of history, but the plot is far more profound and rotated. The goal is not to make the viewer feel comfortable and comfortable. Exactly the opposite. Ruben Östlund himself states that his films are sociological experiments and he likes to put people in situations where they fail.

   

   The main actor is Christian (Clyans Beng). The charismatic curator, whose life is mysterious but also very simple and predictable. Because it's kind of a norm. His mind is centered on the promotion of an exhibition focusing on forgotten tolerance and concern for the other. In his life, however, he does not easily perform what the utopian free zone of the square preaches. She is a victim of a robbery, trying to help a woman screaming for help at a square in Stockholm. And he decides to seek revenge for the robbery. His brilliant life is dark. His ego is hurt, and the outcome turns out to be using desperate means, searching for the criminal. Using tracking technology, he locates the location of his lost items. The plan is a fool of his subordinate. The place is in the suburbs of Stockholm, where there is no chance anyone will know who Christian is, although it is a public figure. Satisfied and happy, exalted, the two go to give justice, driving wildly Tesla to social housing. An endless tunnel connects the two worlds. Guilty to the contrary. Everyone in the building is the potential criminal. Christian puts a letter in the mailbox of every resident, inviting him to return what he is. Especially important are the cuffs given by his grandfather. He subsequently gets his belongings. Together with several others. A real gain, however, is the enemy you create in the face of a little boy who looks like an immigrant, but is he? Ruben Östlund says it is not clear whether he is an immigrant or not. Is he himself politically correct or simply crafted with the audience and avoids taking responsibility for what he himself has created?

   By placing community and responsibility at the center, the film is valuable for its social message. Delicately rebutting the unpleasant consequences of the illusion of self-sufficiency and mistrust; hatred of the other. Inviting to quietly pay attention to the essence of sharing, empathy, living together and finding the human. Disturbing with finesse, boundless egotism and fear, false tamedness, and the delusion of accepting what is not normal. Inviting a refined to forget about the ugliness of impatience to the stigmatized as uncivilized. In the case of "The Square" , no art is needed to see our souls, but rather humanity.

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2. ›Ruben Östlund's "The Square" or can everything be art?@godflesh3024d

   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.

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