The concept of art is always subject to debate without result due to the disagreement between artists, the public and who defines their concept of art as the absolute and undeniable truth. The Swedish film winner of the Palme d’Or in Cannes brings this theme.
In a post-monarchy Sweden, the curator of the Stockholm art museum, Christian (Claes Bang), needs to find financial resources to support the building. The marketing department bets on videos impacting the YouTube channel of the institution to attract the attention of the public, even generating controversy. To complete your bad luck, your cell phone is stolen by thieves. With the help of his Danish assistant and friend Michael (Christopher Læssø), he discovers the whereabouts of a tracking application, thus intimidating by letters the alleged thief, which further complicates his life.
The symbolism of the square is a point of the movie to be noticed. The static camera causes a restraining effect to be closes or open planes. How his square representing the politically correct permeated the social and would hamper the progress of art. The cast can enter and exit the scene as if they were part of a theater when the frame moves.
In addition, Christian is an alter-ego director by having his cell phone stolen in the same way and the art object given the name of the feature. The landmark work of Sweden’s Best Foreign Film film at the Oscars was an art exhibition known as Rutan (The Square) created by director Ruben Ostlund and film producer Kalle Boman made at the Vandalorum Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Varnamo, Sweden. Touching on the theme of altruism and solidarity, the exhibition has been transformed into a satirical drama about current art and how it conquers the public amid anecdotes in the local and world art scene.
As for example, the Chimpazé Peter of Boras Zoo using the pseudonym avant-garde artist Pierre Brassau painted works acclaimed by the critics and public in 1964. Or more recent disasters like the performance of Oleg Kulik that finished in case of police for acting like dog during a Swedish exhibition. In the feature film, he is played by the American actor Terry Notary, famous for being the motion picker in the reboot of the Planet of the Apes trilogy.
In order to test the antithesis of the altruistic proposal, there is nothing like exposing the country’s migratory crisis brought about by the increase of the mostly Romanian and Bulgarian mendicants by showing a video of an abandoned Swedish child exploding to cause national controversies or else to debate why not discard a used condom from a celebrity. Or the hypocrisy of their beliefs in kindness and their petty everyday practices.
The film deserves to be seen as a means of debate about debate, social impressions and real humanism. Seen the Brazilian art as the Queermuseu and children touching a naked man in the MaM with its social impacts that put in check the concept of art.
