Please Go Watch “The Square” and Enjoy a Spectacular Takedown of Modern Art Pretension
Swedish writer/director Ruben Östlund seems to enjoy thematically subverting outdated notions of privilege in his films and we love him for it.
In Force Majeure, masculinity got a great send-up. In his latest film, The Square, the often pretentious modern and contemporary art world teeming with so much self-importance that it forgets about what it’s trying to say gets a similar treatment from Östlund.
Even though it’s a laugh-out loud satire that often follows Murphy’s Law, The Square landed the coveted Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Comedy isn’t often honored at such high levels of merit in the film world, but Östlund earns it with making this movie as exquisite in its mise-en-scene as it is unflinching in its indictment of high class snobbery stemming from the very insular art world with pitch perfect performances from Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, and the guy playing the artist playing the primate, Terry Notary.
We highly urge you to see it as its currently in limited release and will be expanding to more theaters in the coming weeks. Find a showtime, release date for a theater near you here.