After reading some reviews by professional critics, I start to lose confidence in their ability to 'read' a film...
"The Square" is harder to 'read' than most films, but director & writer Ruben Östlund gives you many clues what his intentions are and even repeats it a few times in the film.
It's about the problems all modern societies face: Migration, poverty, social stratification, gender trouble, battle of the sexes, inequality, social injustice and a general loss of community and trust in each other.
As the central metaphor Östlund presents in his film an art work called 'The Square' - created by an artist and sociologist - which represents an ideal society, where trust, pro-social behavior and trust among people is the norm. But the film "The Square" itself presents a (Swedish) society, that is far, far away from this utopia, almost the opposite. Östlund illustrates these abstract topics through dreamlike episodes from everyday life: The main protagonist becomes a victim of confidence men at the beginning, which triggers morally questionable actions by him and his friends, which result in other people losing their confidence in society, too.
If you understood this, you have a chance at getting something out of this movie, but - be warned - it gets increasingly complicated and wild.
It's also about the loss of trust between men and women, the borders of tolerance and inclusion in society, the stupidity of modern art, the mad cacophony of the media & the animalistic nature of man, who still might be only an advanced ape looking to find a better society to live in.
Östlund uses episodes, metaphors and leitmotifs instead of a conventional plot, always dancing around his subjects in surprising ways, more like in a novel. The surrealistic touches, which often seem to come out of nowhere, because the film looks hyper-realistic most of the time, make the interpretation even more demanding, because everything we see could also be 'explained' as a nightmare by the hero. But even nightmares reflect our social reality in bizarre ways.
Last but not least, 'The Square' is also the shape of the projected film in the cinema. You could interpret this as Östlund's way of saying, that cinema is one of the central social spaces where trust and community can be created today.
I understand people, who don't like this movie or see it as flawed, but it works and is never boring. Maybe it's a little too simple in it's 'solution' for the difficult questions it asked at the beginning and maybe it doesn't end in a satisfying way and maybe it's too moralizing - but few films are this ambitious and demanding these days and that should be praised.
I haven't seen such a film since Luis Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty" (1974), which is similar in satirical tone, realist style, episodic structure and surrealist approach. Another influence might be Roy Andersson's dry, comic surrealism, but it's still its own thing.
It's too rich for one viewing. I need to see it again.
"The Square" is harder to 'read' than most films, but director & writer Ruben Östlund gives you many clues what his intentions are and even repeats it a few times in the film.
It's about the problems all modern societies face: Migration, poverty, social stratification, gender trouble, battle of the sexes, inequality, social injustice and a general loss of community and trust in each other.
As the central metaphor Östlund presents in his film an art work called 'The Square' - created by an artist and sociologist - which represents an ideal society, where trust, pro-social behavior and trust among people is the norm. But the film "The Square" itself presents a (Swedish) society, that is far, far away from this utopia, almost the opposite. Östlund illustrates these abstract topics through dreamlike episodes from everyday life: The main protagonist becomes a victim of confidence men at the beginning, which triggers morally questionable actions by him and his friends, which result in other people losing their confidence in society, too.
If you understood this, you have a chance at getting something out of this movie, but - be warned - it gets increasingly complicated and wild.
It's also about the loss of trust between men and women, the borders of tolerance and inclusion in society, the stupidity of modern art, the mad cacophony of the media & the animalistic nature of man, who still might be only an advanced ape looking to find a better society to live in.
Östlund uses episodes, metaphors and leitmotifs instead of a conventional plot, always dancing around his subjects in surprising ways, more like in a novel. The surrealistic touches, which often seem to come out of nowhere, because the film looks hyper-realistic most of the time, make the interpretation even more demanding, because everything we see could also be 'explained' as a nightmare by the hero. But even nightmares reflect our social reality in bizarre ways.
Last but not least, 'The Square' is also the shape of the projected film in the cinema. You could interpret this as Östlund's way of saying, that cinema is one of the central social spaces where trust and community can be created today.
I understand people, who don't like this movie or see it as flawed, but it works and is never boring. Maybe it's a little too simple in it's 'solution' for the difficult questions it asked at the beginning and maybe it doesn't end in a satisfying way and maybe it's too moralizing - but few films are this ambitious and demanding these days and that should be praised.
I haven't seen such a film since Luis Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty" (1974), which is similar in satirical tone, realist style, episodic structure and surrealist approach. Another influence might be Roy Andersson's dry, comic surrealism, but it's still its own thing.
It's too rich for one viewing. I need to see it again.