The Square: A Perfect 'Moral of the Story'?

[Slight spoiler warning; found throughout]

Ruben Östlund’s The Square presents us with quite a clear central message; do we, and to what extent will we, uphold our own ideals? The message manifests itself as our character, art-curator Christian, prepares the unveiling of a new art exhibition titled The Square. The exhibition centres on the idea of the titular square being a “sanctuary of trust and caring” whereby any individual can enter and ask their fellow humans for help in their troubles; clearly moving the exhibition (and thus the film) into a realm of social commentary. However as the wealthy Christian prepares the exhibition these very ideals of assisting others in an individualist society are pushed to their satirical limits.

Simple as this may seem I think that such an approach is fascinating, and rarely well executed. So often we are either approached by a blaring ‘this is the way to live’ message (e.g. the enforcement of family values or care for others) or a more subtle/emotional personal message—but rarely are we given such an altruistic message which proceeds to be dissected and challenged. Christian is presented with countless of these challenges throughout the film, in both real and constructed (art-piece) situations which often come to contrast each other; yet when the art jumps out at the audience they act accordingly. A personal favourite example of this is as Christian proceeds to buy a sandwich for a homeless woman she becomes very picky about her order, as a result Christian becomes incredibly impatient simply lumping the sandwich down on the table in front of her. But why does he have the right to do this, if his act was purely because of care for the woman he would allow her the same rights as himself—and, in our societal model of customer first, he has the perfect right to order what he fancies. In essence, the film perfectly challenges altruistic and caring ideals proposed by The Square by putting them into the realities of our individualist society where, inevitably, we are our own centres of society and the world.

The secondary narrative is also fascinating in the same regard, as the PR team are putting together an advertisement for the exhibition they hire a couple of youthful marketers who aim for the viral approach of the ad. In this way they attempt to make the most shocking and in your face video-ad, which (although I’ll let you see it for yourself) throws out all of these ideals and directly opposes them; adding to our question, are we willing to compromise our ideals in the face of popularity?

Such a narrative analysis could go much farther and much deeper than I shall here, but I aim to only give a brief look as to allow you to experience the wonder of this film first-hand.

The Square was, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest films of 2017 while also containing what I am sure will become an iconic scene of our decade as Terry Notary’s monkey-man intimidates the usually hyper-confrontational and confident art-world elite in a piece that, again, deeply questions our individualism pointing towards an intrinsic need to care for, and be cared for by, others.

In the end, the 'perfect moral of the story' I refer to in the title isn't in fact having an easily digestible single phrase to sum up the meanings of the narrative but instead to have taken an altruistic ideal and thoroughly questioned it within the 'real world', instead of telling us how to behave it asks us if we uphold our own ideals (whatever they may be) in our everyday existence.

~Leo

The Square (2017)

4/3/3

10/13