I want to stop the beautiful words about this film on its own "topical effect". Compared with many other movies made in 2017, the concept and views expressed in "The Square" will undoubtedly become a topic that people are willing to discuss in the social space for a time. Not only after dinner, but also in more serious occasions such as pre-class lectures, university classrooms, or in the museum itself, some fragments of "The Square" can be easily picked up and used as texts that reflect on contemporary art and today’s society. . Ruben Ostlund won the Palme d'Or with this film, which must also be a bold affirmation of the film's "social" role. It is also worth a little bit of fun. The different audiences have different positioning of the film. During the Cannes premiere of "The Square" before it became the "topic" itself, the audience was hooked, but the reactions of film critics were mixed. , Which can also see some clues.
Compared with the same type of "Tony Erdman" last year, "The Square" is undoubtedly a satirical comedy with a larger volume and a more pungent brushwork. It is also the two lines of family and career that go hand in hand, but the latter creates a depth of thought that is unattainable in "Tony Erdman" for the whole film through paragraph-like cutting and superimposition. The “awkward chat” in the first interview of the film, the assistance to strangers in the square, the whole process of the loss of the mobile phone, the curatorial promotion video and the subsequent apology, the climax of the development to the out-of-control opening dinner, etc... Not directly related, but the director has consciously reminded us throughout the whole process that these fragmented anecdotes are all irony and beatings on modern art and modern civilized people bound in this context. We laughed constantly during the viewing process, but after a short pause, we knew that our laughter was nothing more than a subconscious mockery and accusation of the so-called “disguise” of art and civilization.
These ridicules first revolved around the protagonist. The values advertised in the “The Square” art installation and Christian’s exposure of his “nature” in the process of handling the loss of his mobile phone revealed to us his identity as the museum director and the words behind the art concepts. Disconnection in behavior. However, the film does not focus on Christian alone. Apart from him, the second leading protagonist is the vast crowd-these people are not necessarily Christian fans, but they are undoubtedly followers and consumers of museums and contemporary art. They appeared at Christian’s introduction to the “The Square” project and were portrayed as a group of “melon-eating people” who were more concerned about when the dinner started than the project itself; they appeared at the opening dinner of “The Square”, Dai Sitting with a black bow tie in a precarious manner, holding a smile and earnestly "appreciating" the "appetizer" wrapped in performance art, the silence was not broken until a female guest's skirt was torn; they also appeared in the museum "Sand Pile" installation (named At the entrance of the "You have nothing") exhibition hall, they, like us and Christian, are members of the vast sea of people. They walk through the square coming out of the subway entrance with their own goals every day.
Apart from the "producers" of art (ie Christian, and the team behind him, media and capital forces, etc.) and "consumers", "The Square" also mocks and reflects on the underlying social context behind these individuals and groups. Contrary to the "thinking cage", the motif of "political correctness" is directly or indirectly pointed out in the film, prompting us to further think about the following propositions: awareness and tolerance of marginalized groups, the boundaries of freedom of speech, and whether modern art "Useless" and lack of social function. In short, Ostlund directly refers to the embarrassing situation that contemporary civilized people are facing more direct and acute social problems after they have been baptized by higher education and values, and how art as a tool itself can solve this dilemma. Feeling pale and powerless. The tension and silence that lasted for several minutes at the opening feast was embarrassing. In the other scene, the speaker's tolerance for unreasonable troubles in the audience was also embarrassing. It was embarrassing that Christian and the little boy could not reach a consensus on the stairs. No matter where we are, we do not see the possibility that art as a spiritual guide can help these problems. The contrast between this paleness and the Christian self-immersion constitutes the most distinctive irony element in "The Square".
In 2017, talking about the hypocrisy of modern civilization, the pretentiousness of artists, and the incomprehensibility of installations such as "The Square" and "Sand Pile" must be a pleasant thing. In the middle, it is undoubtedly more "political correct" to make fun of the "political correctness" itself behind it.
However, I still want to keep the beautiful words of this film on its own "topical effect". Because, the ingenuity of the conception of "The Square" does not allow us to avoid its shortcomings in the expression of the film itself, and the resulting further doubts about the conception itself. Let’s start with the script. It can be said that this movie is a “judge” and a “judge” that has failed. The constant fresh stimulation of the senses is the reason that supports us to sit down for 140 minutes without feeling tired at all. However, these "uninterrupted stimulation" have not woven us into a complete and self-evident story, not only the character setting itself (such as Christian's daughter, American female reporter, etc.), but also the concepts and concepts behind the characters and the plot. The implication also makes people feel fragmented and chaotic, lacking overall unity, and even lacking the balance between good and evil. The conceptual sharpness cannot conceal the film’s lack of aesthetics.
The second is the "puppetization" and flattening of the characters. Although this phenomenon is not uncommon in black humorous comedies, it is indeed a pity that it has not been able to create a few flesh-and-blood characters as a work with considerable speculative ambitions such as "The Square". Whether it is Christian or the female reporter played by Elizabeth Moss, they are just tools for connecting the plot. They are dolls in the Ostrund play. They go wherever the director points. Especially for the latter, the passages she appears are basically self-contained and have nothing to do with the core of the movie.
The direct consequence of this is that when we try to further think about the plight of the "Christians", we will find that the movie does not describe exactly who they are, and how their plight has become. Our common dilemma. When we want to promote the embarrassment of "Christians" to the embarrassment of the entire society, we will find that these characters are too thin to talk about this topic. This is why I personally think that from the point of view of the movie text, the same type of "Tony Erdman" last year was not as profound as "The Square", but it did a little better. The roles of father and daughter in that movie are more vivid, with real dialogue and emotion, and more love and hate. In contrast, Ostlund lacked some sincerity and chose "concept" first in the trade-off between "topic" and "role". The flatness and abstraction of the characters in "The Square" greatly weakens the potential universal meaning of the theme.
It is true that the plot arrangement and characterization should not be the most fundamental factor in judging the excellence of "The Square", but the director's choice in these two aspects has succeeded in ensuring that the film is sufficiently "excellent", popular, and popular. But in my opinion, these are not the most "slick" aspects of Ostlund's "The Square". Looking back on the topics discussed in the film, it is not difficult to find that he has taken out the least painful contemporary art and its "consumers" among the many social focal points for serious discussion, playing and mocking them all. And this is what makes me most disturbed in "The Square".
If "The Square" tells us how hypocritical the middle class is, that confusion and avoidance are less important, then the way Ostlund presents them is the best footnote to this perception. On the surface, mocking and attacking "Christians" seems to be the most "politically correct", but in fact, thinking about it is just the least effortless. This group of people are regarded as "living targets", concealing many more worthy of attention: the injustice and disability of social mechanisms, the natural distrust between classes and ethnic groups, the tyranny of discourse behind the boundaries of speech, etc., they all quietly The ground is hidden behind the "Christians", avoiding the gaze cast by the audience from time to time, and finally lost in the large-scale middle-class self-deprecation and satire of the "museum people". Obviously, in order to give in to the film’s "pleasant view", Ostlund cunningly took his hand in the place where he should exert his force the most, leaving the film empty with a framework for analysis and the intellectual knowledge to ask questions, but lacked a bit of further progress. Discuss the guts and honesty.
The apparently flattering idea of the movie "The Square" is precisely what makes me unconvinced. Presumably in 2017, the self-deprecation of the consumer middle class is always more popular than consumer art itself. But this self-deprecating and self-analysis, and the eagerness to push the "Christians" to the forefront, are just another round of slightly modified complacency. Reminiscent of the laughter during the movie watching and the easy conclusions made behind the laughter, I can't help asking, are Christian and the Swedish X-Royal Museum behind him really worthy of such a big book? Regardless of the actual influence of this group of "elites" in society, let alone whether they really have the obligation and ability to promote social progress, do we who stand at the moral high ground on the other side of the screen really "smile the right person"?
Compared with the real embarrassment of this society, the embarrassment that Christian has experienced is really not worth mentioning. If the original intention of the director was to portray a group of "museum people" like Christian, and he had no intention of touching the larger social propositions, then it would make sense. But if the intention is the latter, then the choice of focusing on the characters in the film as the main object of criticism is not so appropriate. "The Square" looks spicy and sharp, but it is also very aggressive and shallow. It can even be said to be daunting. In the film, we cannot see the shadow of the "big brother" behind Christian, how "failed" the entire system is, nor can we see whether the era has its inherent limitations, and what is more regrettable is that we cannot see Oss. Does Trende deliberately dig deeper and explore this "limitation" itself, or dig deeper and explore "human nature" itself. In the end, we only saw the director slyly placing Christian in the center of the specimen box for magnified dissection as a slice of this era. In the end, the so-called middle-class dilemma is nothing but the trivial and daily life of the museum director. Such a pity is undoubtedly loosely arranged with the film material, "the cake shop is too open", and is inseparable from the rough characterization.
"The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations." Throughout the whole film, I actually didn't think that the part of the people represented by "Christians" and this sentence did not exist. There is no conflict in the slogan, at least from the perspective of Ostlund's interpretation. Taking a step back, how can contemporary art need to pay for the predicament and stagnation on the social level? After reading the postmodern fable of Ostlund version, after making a lot of laughs, I just want to respond with a lyrics from the end of "Nashville", "You might say they are stupid, but it don't worry me."
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