In Deep Focus: Ruben Östlund’s The Square

“The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it, we all share equal rights and obligations.”

In the past decade, Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness) has found art-house success by perfecting a heightened social realist style described as “a combination of Michael Haneke and Larry David.” The description resonates when watching his early dramas Involuntary and Play, with their innovative mix of sitcom cringe and transcendental bleakness. While Östlund took a slight detour toward commercial sensibility with Force Majeure, a bourgeois dramedy appealing enough to garner a Hollywood remake, he returned to his role of provocateur with 2017’s Palme d’Or winner, The Square.

The film follows Christian, director of the fictional X-Royal Museum in Sweden. Played with exquisite subtlety by Claes Bang, Christian smiles dutifully through the daily absurdities inherent in his milieu. But when he ventures outside the museum’s bubble in search of his stolen wallet, he encounters situations that clash grotesquely with his profession’s self-congratulatory gestures at elevating the common good.  

The worlds of privilege and disorder collide in the film’s centerpiece gala scene. We follow a horde of rich patrons as they file into the museum’s amber-lit dining room, bathed in the colossal ego stroke of the modern philanthropic function. Suddenly a voice booms over the sound system, accompanied by cartoonish jungle sounds one would hear in a tiki bar:

"Welcome to the jungle. Soon you will be confronted by a wild animal. If you show fear, the animal will sense it. If you try to escape, the animal will hunt you down. But if you remain perfectly still without moving a muscle, the animal might not notice you, and you can hide in the herd, safe in the knowledge that someone else will be the prey."

Enter Oleg Rohozjin, a performance artist who inhabits the persona of an apex primate. We have seen glimpses of him earlier in the film, glowering from a video installation. The character is based on an actual performance artist, Oleg Kulik, who is notorious for biting a museum goer in the name of his art.

The film’s Oleg is played by Terry Notary, who began his career in the Cirque du Soleil and later found success in Hollywood as a stuntman and motion capture performer. Östlund discovered him on YouTube in an audition video for Planet of The Apes. The role of Oleg would be difficult for a traditional thespian to perform, given its extremely specific physical demands. But even a veteran stuntman would be hard pressed to craft the performance Notary delivers, his fearless commitment to the bit approaching the sublime.

Delighted at the sound of Oleg vocalizing off-screen, the patrons titter among themselves as they await the evening’s entertainment. Finally the artist appears, bare-chested and rippling with muscle, bounding into the room on crutch-like prosthetics meant to mimic the elongated arms of a great ape. 

The laughter becomes more forced as the evening lists into uncharted territory. Oleg roams among the tables, hooting and chattering. He is physically imposing yet somehow vulnerable, his ape consciousness confused by the strange human environment. He becomes more and more aggressive, shatters a glass, chases out a fellow artist who dares to engage. Christian haplessly attempts to defuse the situation and is himself chased out by the shirtless terror.  The mood darkens. Oleg has the room. He roams triumphantly as the hundreds of guests stare at their plates.  

At this point Östlund tilts the scene into a time-slowing nightmare, filmed in one long, lingering shot. Oleg takes a liking to a young woman frozen in terror. She laughs at the absurdity of her predicament as he begins pulling her hair. She calls for help. Nobody moves.

Östlund takes this moment to zero in on his theme of moral disengagement and the diffusion of responsibility in urban society. Up to this point the film has observed the contrast between affluence and abjection in the unhoused refugees that haunt the urban environment’s liminal spaces, its malls and 7-11s. But Oleg, in turning the tables on his self-satisfied benefactors in the most toxic manner possible, introduces that vulnerability to a population with no fundamental understanding of such an existence. The elite are suddenly defenseless, exposed to the chaos of the outside world.

In the end, the rich take care of their own: An old guy finally jumps out of his seat and knocks Oleg off the woman. In an instant, a bunch of tuxedoed codgers are beating the living shit out of him. 

The scene cuts abruptly to Christian arriving home after the ordeal. (We never find out what ultimately happens to Oleg). In the apartment lobby he is accosted by an immigrant boy who is apoplectic over being implicated in Christian’s wallet theft. The loud but diminutive kid is an ant compared to Oleg, yet the museum director is reduced to anguished hostility by the confrontation, resulting in an unforgivable act of violence.  

The marketing campaign for The Square sold a narrative focused on broad hijinks: Self-absorbed artists clashing with rich collectors and the hapless museum director trying to hold it all together. But Östlund devised a unique take on a potentially stale plot by narrowing his distinctive vision to an unforgiving laser focus, piercing the membrane separating the museum’s rarefied air from the urban squalor outside.  

In his gala rampage, Oleg opens a pathway in the narrative for yet more wild, instinctual interactions among the human animals later in the story. By contrasting the performance artist’s pretentious amorality with Christian’s entitled defensiveness in the following scene, Östlund takes on thorny issues of privilege and self-preservation with a philosophical detachment that would make Haneke proud.  You can always hide in the herd when chaos comes, but your chances depend a great deal on which herd you belong to in the first place.