This artwork that appears in the eyes of the male protagonist and cannot be ignored despite being defocused is a portrayal of his identity and personality at the moment: patchwork together, always facing the danger of falling into a feather. But it is for this reason that this character-as the female reporter put it-has become so "interesting" that we, the audience, can't help but cast curious glances at him, just like the one sitting in the corner. The staff member who turned his head frequently: Her eyes obviously represent the perspective of the audience at this moment, even forcing the protagonist to quickly escape her and our prying eyes.
When the author walked out of the theater, a friend of the same group commented that although the film was hilarious for countless times, it ultimately lacked structure: "The film is full of master-level individual scenes, but it has never been gathered together." Criticism points to the film's loose and multi-angle characteristics, but it is not a fair evaluation of it. One is because its sense of patchwork corresponds to the protagonist's personality, and the other is because the film has a strong core image.
Ruben Ostlund has indeed always been a "greed-to-many" author. He often starts from a single thing, and then throws into a lot of interpretation angles, focusing on the family crisis caused by an avalanche of "The Tourist" That is the representative. This technique accurately captures the status of people in the current society. Sociology has given the concept of "late modernity" for this era of social media and globalization. In this era, people's lives have involuntarily undergone fragmented changes. Everyone has to switch quickly between their multiple identities, trying to piece together a whole for themselves. If we follow Peter Strongdi’s view that form is the precipitation and condensation of content, then this kind of life is bound to crystallize into a collage and multi-faceted form.
On the other hand, Christian, the male protagonist of the film, is also a typical late modern human being. Between his career and family, he is also performing a clown tossing ball-like balance juggling. In this small tsunami incident triggered by a piece of art, he played multiple roles such as artistic authority, agency representative, decision-making superior, male lover, and father. This is another theme that Ostlund pays attention to: role-playing. In "Children's Play", the powerful black children are discussing who will play the good policeman and who will play the bad policeman, while the weak white children voluntarily play the role of the weak at the moment they meet; in the "tourist" All the crisis stems from the fact that his father actually gave up his role in the crisis, so he had to spend the time of a movie to find a way to regain the role. This is exactly what the hero of the film is trying to do. The film shows the crisis he faces in multiple identities and his efforts to rebuild, but the final outcome is all-round failure.
These multiple angles finally merged into the core visual image of the film: the square. Within the four frameworks of this artwork of the same name, trust, safety and care should be re-established. Significantly, the artwork itself refers to this 16-square-meter space as a “shelter”. Reminiscent of what happened to Christian at the beginning of the film in a square (another meaning of the title of the film), this desire for asylum is not difficult to understand. And this is the position of art in this film: Shrinking in a small space delineated by oneself, singing freedom, equality and fraternity, and without any idea about the suffering and problems of the outside world. Art not only loses its due social function, but it also needs a viral video that blogs people's eyeballs to attract the attention of the world who misunderstood the focus.
The cultural world is just a circle in this movie that surrounds itself and keeps the door behind. The same thing can be said for the rich class who are intricately rooted in the art circle. The beggars everywhere in the film and a boy who is obviously born in the lower class in the second half of the film are representatives of another class. They can only attract the attention of the former by irritating shouts and noise. But the affluent society represented by Christian is still locked. After opening the scene with a self-centered reconciliation posture, it immediately transitions to the artistic context of self-talking.
Therefore, such a square is obviously not safe. Its frame is riddled with holes and is constantly threatened by the outside world. A small video can easily defeat it. As this video shows, safety only exists in imagination, and even a performance art performance quickly turns into a small disaster.
"The New Yorker" film critic Richard Brody once criticized the film violently. Although his so-called "Ultra-Left rejectionism to cater to the extreme right rejectionism" can be regarded as grossly wrong, his conclusion of "arrogant, self-righteous, challenging human cynicism" in the film also speaks the truth. Potential problems with the film. As a work of art and cultural product, the film itself has trapped itself in a cage, taking a cynical attitude to self-pity? Judging from the film's condescending attitude, such criticisms are not aimless.
At this time, we can't help but hope that the film can be as brave as its last scene. We first saw the two daughters of the protagonist appear on the cheerleader's performance arena, tightly surrounded by another square frame, it seems that the society is trying to protect its future. Not long after, they witnessed the complete failure of their father's efforts to reconstruct their image of liberal authority. The last shot of the movie focused on the two little girls in the squares, and their faces were full of disdain. This is perhaps the first and only effort in the film to break from the inside out. Our next generation, the future of art in this world, may need this kind of courage to break the frame.
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