The Square (2017)
Country: SV/GER/FR/DK
Technical: col 151m
Director: Ruben Östlund
Cast: Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West
Synopsis:
The curator of a Stockholm museum of contemporary art announces their new exhibit: a sqare of light symbolising the social contract between citizens. However, he allows complications in his personal life to interfere with his control over the publicity campaign, and is caught in the media backlash.
Review:
As in his previous essay on human frailty, Force Majeure, or Turist, the director indulges a predilection for static compositions and extended shot length, leading to an overlong and somewhat indigestible euro-pudding. Rather than opting for one idea, like Hidden, by Michael Haneke, whose films it resembles in some ways, it allows itself to be drawn off into sideswipes at the art world in general, including a mindboggling banquet scene in which a publicity stunt goes awry, providing the film with its arresting poster shot. Even an overhead shot of the protagonist searching the rubbish outside his flat for a lost phone number rather self-consciously resembles one of his own exhibits. Tricksiness like this is ultimately counter-productive, when individual scenes, as with the American art journalist with whom he has a casual fling, work well.
Country: SV/GER/FR/DK
Technical: col 151m
Director: Ruben Östlund
Cast: Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West
Synopsis:
The curator of a Stockholm museum of contemporary art announces their new exhibit: a sqare of light symbolising the social contract between citizens. However, he allows complications in his personal life to interfere with his control over the publicity campaign, and is caught in the media backlash.
Review:
As in his previous essay on human frailty, Force Majeure, or Turist, the director indulges a predilection for static compositions and extended shot length, leading to an overlong and somewhat indigestible euro-pudding. Rather than opting for one idea, like Hidden, by Michael Haneke, whose films it resembles in some ways, it allows itself to be drawn off into sideswipes at the art world in general, including a mindboggling banquet scene in which a publicity stunt goes awry, providing the film with its arresting poster shot. Even an overhead shot of the protagonist searching the rubbish outside his flat for a lost phone number rather self-consciously resembles one of his own exhibits. Tricksiness like this is ultimately counter-productive, when individual scenes, as with the American art journalist with whom he has a casual fling, work well.
Country: SV/GER/FR/DK
Technical: col 151m
Director: Ruben Östlund
Cast: Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West
Synopsis:
The curator of a Stockholm museum of contemporary art announces their new exhibit: a sqare of light symbolising the social contract between citizens. However, he allows complications in his personal life to interfere with his control over the publicity campaign, and is caught in the media backlash.
Review:
As in his previous essay on human frailty, Force Majeure, or Turist, the director indulges a predilection for static compositions and extended shot length, leading to an overlong and somewhat indigestible euro-pudding. Rather than opting for one idea, like Hidden, by Michael Haneke, whose films it resembles in some ways, it allows itself to be drawn off into sideswipes at the art world in general, including a mindboggling banquet scene in which a publicity stunt goes awry, providing the film with its arresting poster shot. Even an overhead shot of the protagonist searching the rubbish outside his flat for a lost phone number rather self-consciously resembles one of his own exhibits. Tricksiness like this is ultimately counter-productive, when individual scenes, as with the American art journalist with whom he has a casual fling, work well.