There’s a scene late in Ruben Ostlünd’s deeply strange new film The Square where Oleg, a performance artist, disrupts a museum gala; his performance quickly turns from amusing and evocative to harrowing, uncomfortable, and dangerous. Financed, however indirectly, by the people he upsets, Oleg is art unchecked, something curated without care and with little thought for how his craft might truly affect others. Oleg, as he embodies the ideas of The Square, is the intersection of class control and art, and how the former corrupts the latter. Played by Terry Notary of Planet of the Apes fame, Oleg holds the film for the scene—one of the best single scenes of 2017—but it is those who remain safe from the world in their immaculate, expensive museum which Ostlünd truly takes aim at.
Focusing on a few days in the life of museum curator Christian (Claes Bang), and occasionally interested in the lives of others around him (including the always wonderful Elisabeth Moss and a satisfyingly grumpy Dominic West), The Square is best when it hones in on the minutiae of a privileged life, emboldening awkward situations with a sense of comic purpose. Conversations spiral into muttered insults, arguments expose overblown egos, and self-inflicted problems give way to major personal crises, all with the intent of exposing the buffoon at the film’s center as a hapless creature losing control through the most minor of setbacks.
The Square is similarly concerned with how the manipulation of artistic aesthetics can control and elicit meaning from mundane situations. Early on in the film, Christian asks if the simple placement of an object within the space of a museum immediately gives the object merit as ‘art’. Similarly, if an incident is described through film, does that make it important? Christian certainly hopes so, as The Square’s razor-thin plotting, assembled out of whatever pieces of his life happen to be lying around, seems to suggest he lives with little consequence. When Christian experiences small blows to his ego, he allows them to spiral into grandiose, purposeful conflict, accompanied by dramatic, oftentimes gorgeous framing. The Square itself, his museum’s new installation, is intent on building a community, and Christian finds himself drawn to it by a utopian desire he never truly acts upon, using it to feel better about himself as he willfully avoids his own failings. Through his selfish actions, The Square mocks the pomposity of the elite, never letting go of the legitimate power they abuse in the process.
While The Square works well enough as a commentary on the pretentiousness and carelessness of the cultural elite, it also occupies a curiously similar space to the minimalist modern art it displays and disparages. As an art film with a niche audience that argues against niche audiences, the film feels at war with itself beyond its exposition of Christian’s own egocentric musings. Instances of the malicious nature of the museum’s business often read as hyperbolic. By concerning itself with the tactile nature of the museum’s modern art (at one point, a maintenance worker accidentally sweeps up a pile of rocks from one display to little consequence), The Square seems to suggest that it itself could be rearranged or have bits deleted without any noticeable difference. After two hours and twenty-two minutes, it’s hard not to agree. The theme essentially questions the film’s very creation. It’s hard to tell whether that’s genius, or, alternatively, if The Square thinks it wasn’t even worth the effort of making.
Perplexing, sparse, and caustic in its humor, The Square is not an easy sit, but for those willing to engage with its narcissistic construction, it becomes the kind of movie that’s a lot of fun to think about, perhaps more than it is to directly experience. Isn’t that what good art is supposed to be?
Interested in seeing The Square? This film will be playing at SIFF Uptown Cinema through Thursday, November 23rd. To find more information visit: https://www.siff.net/year-round-cinema/the-square
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ3IRcgi0yE
CAMERON FAIRCHILD | Cultural Elitist | KXSU Arts Reporter