The Square (2017) - Östlund calls out hypocrisy and grabs the monkey in us with provocative, hilarious, bold masterpiece

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+ Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best Societal Critique of the Year + Best Stockholm Movie of the Year + Best Swedish Movie of the Year + Best Breakthrough Actor of the Year: Claes Bang

A striking and mysterious poster for Ruben Östlund's The Square

The Square it the 5th fiction feature from Swedish master writer-director Ruben Östlund (Force Majeure/Turist (2014)).

The curator of a prestigious, central Stockholm art museum feels his life come apart by its seems, as he acts upon becoming the victim of a trick theft, while also welcoming a foreign journalist and a new art installation into his life.

Claes Bang (Anna Pihl (2006-08)) gives an impressive performance as the Danish curator Christian, his greatest role yet, which may open an international breakthrough for him. It is a complex role that he succeeds in making sympathetic for the most part, which makes the character's bad decisions so much more cringe-worthy and objectionable. Bang acts as our guy here, and he couldn't do a better job. His mistakes constitute some of the questions the film asks of us: 
How do we personally deal with the less fortunate we come across in our daily lives? The homeless? The strangers?
Are we prejudiced and in which ways?
Do we truly interact with our family members, or are we miles apart? - And is that how we prefer things, at heart?
How do we treat the people we work with, and especially those serving under us?
Östlund's stance here on his countrymen, privileged Swedes and Scandinavians, and Westerners in general, I presume we can broaden his perspective to include, is quite gloomy: SPOILER The Square pitches us against our ancestor the ape more than once, and the implication seems to be that we are slightly evolved apes, who as modern people seem to have regressed socially, from, say, 50 years ago, to a crowd that today are more egotistical and hypocritical than ever.
Thank God the film is also very very funny. It gets its piercing societal and human critique across often through absurdly humorous scenes, and it is brimming with ambitious, often lengthy scenes that are outrageous, provocative, stressful, uncomfortable - and hilarious.
In supporting parts Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale (2017-18)) is terrific as the visiting journalist, SPOILER and you can look forward to a strikingly well-made sex scene between her and Bang. Fredrik Wenzel's (The Ape/Apan (2009)) cinematography is apt here as throughout. Christopher Læssø (Scratch/Bagland (2003)) is very good in a key role as Christian's assistant, and Terry Notary (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)) is frightening and magnetic as a gorilla-imitating performance artist. While the music motif made me think of the works of another great Swedish cinema artist with a flair for both humor and societal critique, Roy Andersson, The Square has a clear connection to Östlund's own mission as also reflected in his startling, original Force Majeure, one that continually prods modern man and his institutions and exhibits hypocrisy and existential anxiety in many forms.
The Square is a rich experience that invites conversation and analysis, - besides the initial laughs and bouts of cold sweats. It even has a few things left unclear in the way that great films sometimes have, where they are not unexplained threads but conscious mysteries left in, seemingly, just to bother us and remind us that real life also can't all be explained. And The Square is probably most of all meant to do just that; bother us. It does so with rare, invigorating talent and drive.

Related post:

Ruben Östlund: 2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2017 in films - according to Film Excess
Force Majeure/Turist (2014) or, Swedes in Trouble

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 5.5 mil. $
Box office: 2 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say
[The Square premiered 20 May (Cannes) and runs 142 minutes. The film is a Swedish-German-Danish-French co-production of no less than 13 companies. Filming took place from June - October 2016 in Berlin, Germany and Sweden, including in Stockholm. Östlund for most of filming reportedly focused on one scene a day, doing each one up to 50 times. The film won the Palm d'Or in Cannes under jury president Pedro Almodóvar and is Sweden's entry for the 2018 Oscars. It opened the previous weekend in North America in 4 theaters to a 76k $ first weekend at #32. Whether Magnolia Pictures will broaden it now is unknown, (but they should.) The film opened #1 in Sweden with the biggest Swedish film's opening there of 2017 so far, selling 22k tickets. It is set to open in more European markets and Argentina in November and December with a UK release following in March 2018. The Square is certified fresh at 79 % with a 7.1/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Square?

Force Majeure/Turist (2014) or, Swedes in Trouble

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The hip, eye-catching poster for Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure

Force Majeure is the astounding Swedish Oscar entry this year, which has taken audiences aback most places it has run. It is the 4th feature written and directed by Ruben Östlund (Play (2011)).

On a 5 day family holiday in the French Alps to ski, a Swedish nuclear family share a traumatizing experience one day in a restaurant on the slopes, as an avalanche nearly buries them alive, and the man of the family acts differently than everyone had expected.

Force Majeure works like a human study, and the four main characters are presented very much like present day human specimens, put forth for our observation. There's an exhibitionist quality to the film, also apparent in the maintenance guy who hangs around the hotel and helps the family out while quietly observing them.
The movie is one of those that have a very distinct look and visual concept: Östlund and cinematographer Fredrik Wenzel (The Quiet Roar (2014)) present the conflicts in some very persuasive images that are never without their own points, besides the ones that the scenes embody.

A poignant still from Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure that illustrates very well the situation that the family in the film come to find themselves in

The details:

The acting in the film is very strong: Johannes Kuhnke (Real Humans (2012-14)) and Lisa Love Kongsli (Fatso (2008)) as the couple, Kristofer Hivju (The Thing (2011)) and Fanni Metelius (The Sexual Monologues (2011), short) as the friendly couple who get involved with their issues, and Brady Corbet (Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)) in a key scene as an outsider.
The film works also as an exposé and a seething critique of contemporary Swedes, (as its original title, which means 'tourist', also indicates.) - The Swedes of Östlund's generation are, in this film, mostly unsympathetic, egotistical tourists in their own lives; grown up in a society of increasingly feminine values, emotionally over-nursing, fiercely atheistic and stifling. If I hadn't personally felt so detached from them, their influence on their kids may have been more of an emotional ordeal for me.
As it is, the film is an intriguing, very intelligent play of gender roles, relationship politics and modern life, arranged in supreme pictures, sound design and its eerie Vivaldi motif. Darkly humorous, wry, scathing, and serious, it also lays bare the many anxiety-provoking aspects of the skiing holiday very powerfully.
I am nearly ready to declare this meaningful film that works on so many levels a masterpiece. - I wanted it to end at the time, SPOILER when the family head into the white blizzard, father first, which would have been the perfect end for me. Instead, it had some more in store for us, which was also good, but ended up detracting a tiny bit from the whole, I think.

Watch the excellent trailer here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 1.2 mil. $ (US only)
= Uncertainty
[Without the cost of the film and especially some European box office numbers, I can't say for sure if the film has proven financially successful yet, although I suspect that it has. It received the Jury Prize from the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2014, and is still very much in the race for the Best Foreign Film Oscar 2015.]

What do you think of Force Majeure?