THE SQUARE
Director: Ruben Ostlund
Cast: Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West, Terry Notary, Christopher Laesso, Marina Schiptjenko
Rating: (M)
★★★ (out of five)
Such is the artist’s statement for the installation first seen at the beginning of Ruben Ostlund’s scathing art world satire, The Square (Rialto).
The Square is literally just that: a small square space surrounded by a strip of white light, in front of a Stockholm museum, ostensibly at odds with the harsh, uncaring reality outside its boundaries.
The story begins when museum director Christian (Claes Bang), embroiled in an awkward romance with an American journalist (Elisabeth Moss), is robbed in a con trick, and sets about trying to track down the thieves, while also dealing with the repercussions of a hideously misguided social media marketing campaign for the titular artwork.
Within this loose structure, Ostlund sets about skewering the pretensions of modern art, and those who consume it, in a series of audacious comic sequences, taking sharpest aim at those who look to be shocked and provoked from the safety and comfort of an art gallery, or indeed a cinema ... yes folks, The Square also serves as a metaphor for itself!
In one extended and brilliantly orchestrated scene, a performance artist (Terry Notary), playing a gorilla, crosses way too far into uncomfortable territory for a group of polite, civilised and muted diners at a charity event. It’s the confronting highlight of an intermittently clever and funny art-house flick, purposefully engineered to delight, goad and frustrate.
- Jeremy Quinn
