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Art goes wrong in Ruben Östlund's scattergun satire The Square |
And that exhibit? It’s called The Square (you see!).
Its main feature is a literal square on the floor, marking a safe space where
everyone is equal. The exhibit is themed around trust, mutual respect and
altruism. Traits which Östlund’s film reminds us time-and-time again his
central characters are all sadly lacking in. It’s part of a broad-ranging
satire on the self-importance of the Art World and the self-obsession of the
upper classes that, while beautifully filmed, comes across as rather
scattergun. Putting it bluntly, most of its targets are so obvious, the entire
film might as well be footage of fish being shot in barrels.
A film like this, hinges on Christian’s self-perception
being clearly shown to be very different from his reality. In effect, we need
to see how Christian believes himself to be a decent, upstanding, noble fellow
but also be shown he is in fact prejudiced, self-obsessed and vain. While the
film does very well to show how shallow Christian’s “nice-guy” image is – he
basks in the adulation of colleagues and museum patrons and carefully prepares
his ‘spontaneous’ presentations for maximum effect – we never get quite enough
of a sense of how he sees himself. His mystique is punctured so early, that the
sense of events forcing an awkward confrontation with his true character is not
developed.
This takes nothing away from the exceptional performance of
Claes Bang, a charismatic and gifted actor who can pivot on a sixpence from
huge charm to bullying menace. He’s completely believable as the red-spectacled,
scarf wearing aesthete just as he is the sort of bully who’ll push a
troublesome kid over. Matey and jovial with his employees, he’s also hesitant
on their names and berates assistant Michael (Christopher Læssø) when he gets
cold feet about executing his letter drop plan (on top of which, he naturally
assumes as Michael is black, he’ll be better at carrying out the plan than
Christian). His life is a careful performance, with every moment scripted by
him, that fractures into something much messier the instant he loses control.
It’s just a shame that Östlund doesn’t delve into the opportunities this presents. He’s more interested in obvious characters like Elizabeth Moss’ Anne, a preening journalist (she inexplicably lives with a Chimp) with whom Christian enjoys a one-night stand, culminating in the two of them bickering over a used condom. (Christian seems worried she’ll pinch his sperm).
Too often Östlund contents himself with simply stating that
the upper clases are vain and pre-occupied with their own needs instead of the
lives of others. In case we miss this point, the film is littered with shots of
beggars. It even opens with the camera focused on a beggar sleeping on the
street in broad daylight while, off camera, a passionate student pushes
leaflets urging people to do more to help the homeless while passers-by express
irritation or disinterest to them. You see! Even the campaigner is more
interested in virtue signalling than actually helping people! Interactions with
beggars pepper the film: Christian is annoyed by one beggar not being grateful
enough when he condescendingly offers to buy them dinner to get out of an
awkward conversation with them and then later pays another to guard his shopping
when he takes a phone call.
This social satire runs in parallel with a scathing-but-rather-obvious
series of jokes at the expense of the preening self-importance of the Art
World. The exhibition, The Square, is treated as if it’s the second
coming but, other than parroting the Artist’s written vision, no one (not even
Christian) seems interested in engaging in it or really has a clue what it is
trying to do. The most important part of Christian’s role is in fact attracting
money from rich patrons, who ooh and ahh over the art but have nothing whatsoever
to say about it. The art itself is a parade of cliches – although there is a
very funny recurring joke of an installation that is a series or piles of ash
on the floor which the museum cleaners inadvertently slowly reduce each night.
The unwillingness of people to rock the boat in social
situations is also parodied. Dominic West cameos as an American artist whose
Q&A is constantly disrupted by a man with Tourettes – the discussion collapses
but no one knows how to even to begin to manage the situation. This culminates
in the film’s showpiece (and best scene). A Russian artist whose ‘art’ is to
impersonate a monkey (played by motion-capture guru Terry Notary), performs an
installation at a fund raiser dinner. The guests (and Christian) sit in
increasingly awkward silence, no one willing to take the first step to intervene,
as the artist progresses from humorous monkey noises to increasing acts of
intimidation, violence and finally sexual assault.
It’s all interesting stuff, but it all feels a little too
obvious. The advertising reps bought into design the video are such cliched social
media obsessives they feel like sitcom characters. The juxtaposition of The
Square’s idea that “everyone inside the square is equal” with the reality
of no one being equal is made time and time and again with reduced impact.
Östlund finds a host of squares (stairways, windows etc) to
frame Christian in visually to hammer this home. He makes frequent use of
one-sided two shot set ups (meaning we only focus on one character during a
conversation or exchange) which helps further drill down into that character’s
psyche and stress their distance from whoever they are talking to. But it’s a
lot of flash on an otherwise rather obvious and self-satisfied film, which
never makes as many new and original points as it thinks.
If it’s a stunning realisation to you that people have a
tendency to be self-obsessed, that the Art world is as much about posing and
money as it is art and that social awkwardness will stop people intervening in
the most disastrous circumstances, this is the film for you. Otherwise, you
might find little real insight here.
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