The Square (2017)Modern art has a reputation for being pretentious, unearned or otherwise. In Ruben Östlund's supposedly satirical condemnation of transgressive art as an excuse for mismanagement and general bad behavior by the cultural elite titled The Square (2017), he posits that art is sometimes used as a kind of con--a way to substitute fanciful artifice for depth and self-expression by way of his narcissistic protagonist, Christian (Claes Bang), the curator of a modern art museum in Sweden. The insufferable irony comes when The Square turns out to be not a subversion of this elitist self-indulgence, but a representative of it instead.
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First, let's just put it out there that I enjoy modern art. I enjoy having expectations as to what qualifies as "art" constantly challenged, even if in the process of challenging that definition, less than sound or well-conceived efforts are made to do so. I believe that only by challenging that definition can we truly explore just what self-expression can be. With that said, I have seen many movies do what The Square attempts to do with more aplomb and meaning. What this movie ends up being is akin to the cerebral equivalent of a "geek show". There has been a glut of "arthouse" (a loaded and all but meaningless appellation these days) movies take potshots at the rich and elite with varying degrees of success. And by "success", I mean truly inviting the audience to consider that there is more to the story than "rich people BAD" or that people in power are phonies. Yes, some--maybe even many--are; does that make for a story in and of itself? No, it doesn't .The Square is around two and a half hours of painfully artificial and forced humor and lampooning of snobbery, largely concerning how much of a conceited jerk Christian is, as well as his colleagues to a lesser extent. It opens with an interview by a young woman named Anne (Elisabeth Moss)--bonus points if you remember her name afterward, like Christian did--asking Christian to clarify the idea behind his new exhibits, not to mention a word salad of an exhibit description from the website. Cue a bunch of intellectual-sounding gibberish that could be pasted into any conversation, and Anne is too embarrassed to sound stupid by calling him out on his vague, noncommittal answer. And Christian does this for virtually the entire rest of the film, behaving more like a politician than a museum curator, while the audience constantly waits for him to have his "Ebenezer Scrooge" moment--one that only barely piddles out at the end.
I lost track of how many scenes felt contrived and phony in The Square, crafted solely for the sake of highlighting that the cultural elite care only for optics and media attention and unearned praise, while they dilly-dally and party after hours, squandering the funds they've received from donors. There is the entire "romantic" subplot between Christian and Anne, which isn't convincing for even a second. (Something about a condom that is confusing, weird, and gross all at once; and never mind why Anne has a gorilla in her apartment.) There is a meaningless and puerile scene with one of the modern art museum's "artists" named Julian (Dominic West) giving an interview while an audience member--presumed to have Tourette Syndrome--blurts out obscenities. Ha. Ha. Ha. Very witty. ("South Park" called--it wants its shtick back.) There are a pair of advertisers who are young, trendy, and thoroughly artificial, who go on about social media and political controversy being needed to stir up excitement for the art exhibit--the eponymous "square" that necessitated destroying a monument to dump it in the plaza outside of the museum. Their solution: a video of a crying homeless girl getting blown up because..."edgy". Like The Square, this ad is outlandish and silly, even insulting, and is ultimately shallow and contrived, designed to provoke its audience. In fact, the whole presence of the homeless in the city is solely there just to fulfill moments in the plot that aren't even important to the story in the first place. Is The Square being socially conscious? Not at all. Rather it's trying to use the homeless just to exemplify how so many other people just stare at their cell phones instead and pretend that the poor don't exist. In other news, the sky is blue. People have been exploiting the destitute for ages, and The Square is, ironically, doing just that for the sake of story and character development. So you may be asking, "was there anything you did like about this movie?" There are precisely two moments in The Square that I felt had potential; both ultimately fall flat, but here they are. One comes after Christian has coerced his IT guy named Michael (Christopher Læssø) to help him produce a series of threatening fliers to insert into the mailboxes of every apartment in a building where they've tracked Christian's stolen phone to be. After recovering his phone and wallet (miraculously), he receives a follow up package. When he shows up to meet the sender, it is a young boy who alerts Christian that his flier has inadvertently made his parents believe that he is a thief. It's humorous, but this unexpected consequence overstays its welcome, because when Christian finally appears to see the error of his ways where it concerns this boy, his efforts are still overwhelmingly tinged with self-serving motivations.
The only other moment in The Square that offers a much-needed jolt of energy and excitement comes at a lavish, black tie gala dinner, where a performance artist named Oleg Rogozjin (Terry Notary) delivers a caveman routine. Tension builds slowly in this scene, until he begins to accost Julian, who sneers at the performer, who in turn antagonizes him even more. Julian storms out, but Oleg continues his performance, ultimately grabbing a pretty woman by the hair and trying to make off with her. Up until this point, all of the other attendees sit frozen for fear of attracting the performer's attention, as though they were finally able to feel some sense of dread or anxiety which they have heretofore quashed with opulent luxury. The scene is ultimately ruined, however, as a cluster of wrinkled patrons begin to assault the artist, crying for his death. Yes, The Square, we get it...the rich only want to simulate experiences rather than feel them for real. We got it before this conclusion to the scene beat us over the head with it. Satire is a delicate thing. It's one thing to make fun of something that is ridiculous or absurd, but by just pointing a finger at it and making it seem silly isn't enough. Yes, everyone can appreciate that self-absorbed advertising punks can go on about why generating controversy gets YouTube hits, which yields publicity, and how obnoxious that is. And yes, we've all met horrible snobs and weasels like Christian in our lives, who say and do anything to absolve themselves of responsibility at every turn, no matter who ends up paying the price instead. But all of this could have come across in a cheesy sketch comedy routine instead of a bloated film that begs its audience to justify the time they've wasted by ignoring how empty its critique of elitism really is. And, for the record, it's okay to look at modern art--which might be nothing more than a McDonalds hamburger wrapper glued to a photograph of Donald Trump--and say that it's not art, that it says nothing save that the artist was bored, lazy, and was being provocative for its own sake, not for ours, thus representing that it doesn't care for its audience and instead treats them with scorn.
Recommended for: Fans of a shallow indictment of the cultural elite and wealthy...because that's such a novelty anymore, right?! To be a successful satire, a movie must be clever. To be a successful comedy, a movie must be funny. Regrettably, The Square is neither.
I lost track of how many scenes felt contrived and phony in The Square, crafted solely for the sake of highlighting that the cultural elite care only for optics and media attention and unearned praise, while they dilly-dally and party after hours, squandering the funds they've received from donors. There is the entire "romantic" subplot between Christian and Anne, which isn't convincing for even a second. (Something about a condom that is confusing, weird, and gross all at once; and never mind why Anne has a gorilla in her apartment.) There is a meaningless and puerile scene with one of the modern art museum's "artists" named Julian (Dominic West) giving an interview while an audience member--presumed to have Tourette Syndrome--blurts out obscenities. Ha. Ha. Ha. Very witty. ("South Park" called--it wants its shtick back.) There are a pair of advertisers who are young, trendy, and thoroughly artificial, who go on about social media and political controversy being needed to stir up excitement for the art exhibit--the eponymous "square" that necessitated destroying a monument to dump it in the plaza outside of the museum. Their solution: a video of a crying homeless girl getting blown up because..."edgy". Like The Square, this ad is outlandish and silly, even insulting, and is ultimately shallow and contrived, designed to provoke its audience. In fact, the whole presence of the homeless in the city is solely there just to fulfill moments in the plot that aren't even important to the story in the first place. Is The Square being socially conscious? Not at all. Rather it's trying to use the homeless just to exemplify how so many other people just stare at their cell phones instead and pretend that the poor don't exist. In other news, the sky is blue. People have been exploiting the destitute for ages, and The Square is, ironically, doing just that for the sake of story and character development. So you may be asking, "was there anything you did like about this movie?" There are precisely two moments in The Square that I felt had potential; both ultimately fall flat, but here they are. One comes after Christian has coerced his IT guy named Michael (Christopher Læssø) to help him produce a series of threatening fliers to insert into the mailboxes of every apartment in a building where they've tracked Christian's stolen phone to be. After recovering his phone and wallet (miraculously), he receives a follow up package. When he shows up to meet the sender, it is a young boy who alerts Christian that his flier has inadvertently made his parents believe that he is a thief. It's humorous, but this unexpected consequence overstays its welcome, because when Christian finally appears to see the error of his ways where it concerns this boy, his efforts are still overwhelmingly tinged with self-serving motivations.
The only other moment in The Square that offers a much-needed jolt of energy and excitement comes at a lavish, black tie gala dinner, where a performance artist named Oleg Rogozjin (Terry Notary) delivers a caveman routine. Tension builds slowly in this scene, until he begins to accost Julian, who sneers at the performer, who in turn antagonizes him even more. Julian storms out, but Oleg continues his performance, ultimately grabbing a pretty woman by the hair and trying to make off with her. Up until this point, all of the other attendees sit frozen for fear of attracting the performer's attention, as though they were finally able to feel some sense of dread or anxiety which they have heretofore quashed with opulent luxury. The scene is ultimately ruined, however, as a cluster of wrinkled patrons begin to assault the artist, crying for his death. Yes, The Square, we get it...the rich only want to simulate experiences rather than feel them for real. We got it before this conclusion to the scene beat us over the head with it. Satire is a delicate thing. It's one thing to make fun of something that is ridiculous or absurd, but by just pointing a finger at it and making it seem silly isn't enough. Yes, everyone can appreciate that self-absorbed advertising punks can go on about why generating controversy gets YouTube hits, which yields publicity, and how obnoxious that is. And yes, we've all met horrible snobs and weasels like Christian in our lives, who say and do anything to absolve themselves of responsibility at every turn, no matter who ends up paying the price instead. But all of this could have come across in a cheesy sketch comedy routine instead of a bloated film that begs its audience to justify the time they've wasted by ignoring how empty its critique of elitism really is. And, for the record, it's okay to look at modern art--which might be nothing more than a McDonalds hamburger wrapper glued to a photograph of Donald Trump--and say that it's not art, that it says nothing save that the artist was bored, lazy, and was being provocative for its own sake, not for ours, thus representing that it doesn't care for its audience and instead treats them with scorn.
Recommended for: Fans of a shallow indictment of the cultural elite and wealthy...because that's such a novelty anymore, right?! To be a successful satire, a movie must be clever. To be a successful comedy, a movie must be funny. Regrettably, The Square is neither.