‘The Square’: Ruben Ostlund Talks Wanting To Win At Cannes, Contemporary Art, More [Interview]

“The Square” is a movie that dares to challenge political correctness in its ferociously unhinged study of the human psyche. What exactly binds us to communicate and be civil to each other is the central question posed by writer-director Ruben Ostlund.

The episodic nature of “The Square” is also an unrestrained attempt at a comedy of manners. It works brilliantly as Ostlund stages one crazed set-piece after another, upping the ante with every sequence until we arrive at a high-brow museum dinner featuring a monkey-man terrorizing its guests. I will say no more. In fact, the less you know about “The Square,” the better it will likely be.

Set in Stockholm, the story follows curator Christian (Claes Bang), who is coasting through life with a successful job, able to have any woman he wants, and possessing the confidence of loyal staff and friends. However, from the opening scene, something is not right. He seems to look down upon people that don’t share his privileged lifestyle, and his massive ego can take up the whole room.

The title of the film comes from the Museum’s new exhibit called The Square, which Christian concocts along with his team of resourceful minds. The genesis and meaning of the project has to do with social media, a literal square representing the space where everyone in society shares responsibility to care for each other but, through a series of highly entertaining, but unfortunate events in the film, Christian will realize that his idea of The Square is a bit naive. There is a primal instinct and darkness that looms inside human nature.

“The Square” is brilliant all around, and makes it clear that “Force Majeure,” was just a small taste of Ostlund’s immense talent. We spoke to the filmmaker at the New York Film Fest about his own creative process, the disillusionment of the modern art world, and that crazy apeman.

I almost feel like this movie is tackling and satirizing the PC movement that is currently happening in today’s society.
I am making fun of everyone [laughs]. Nobody escapes unharmed in Ruben Ostlund movies. I really tried to make the audience look at themselves in the mirror and ask questions about their own motives. That’s really my goal with most of my movies.

You shot one scene a day over 70 days. That’s unusual.
You can thank my producer Erik Hemmendorff for letting me do that and the actors for going along with it. I’ve worked with Erik for a long time, and we somehow were able to put a lot of money on the actual shooting. We had a lot of time on the set and it definitely helped not only me but the actors themselves reach their goals. I actually had time to evaluate what the actors were doing. That can really help make a script look better and, obviously, the overall movie as well.

You are known to shoot a lot of takes.
The “luxury” of a long shoot is incredible for me. I would generally shoot one scene per day, with some taking up to 50-60 takes. A few of the scenes were only completed after four days.

You mean to say that a single scene could take up four days of shooting?
Yeah. I like to investigate the scene in a real-time aspect and I really take my time with [cinematographer] Fredrik Wenze to make sure every camera angle is the right decision. Each scene is supposed to be a visual expression, so I need time to get it right. I sometimes have a single camera position I use each day.

That would actually not be far off from what Leos Carax does, and I found that this film very much resembled in the style of “Holy Motors.” Did you take that film as inspiration?
Funny you mention that. I love that movie but I never really thought about it when making my movie. I mean, it does share that episodic nature that Carax was going after, how every scene felt like a short movie, and I adored that about “Holy Motors.” It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen this decade.

So, you kept editing this movie until the very last minute for Cannes. Have you edited it again since then?
It was a very stressful time, we really wanted to make the festival. I always wanted to be in Competition at Cannes. People that tell you they don’t really care about awards — they lie [laughs]. I wanted to win. It took us five months to edit the film. The version that won the Palme d’Or has been snipped by around 2 minutes and 43 seconds, most of which was in the final quarter of the film.

How did the idea of “The Square” come to you? It’s quite imaginative. Did you base it on any real-life events?
A friend and I had made an installation that was very similar to The Square you see in the film. It was actually in four different cities — two in Sweden and two in Norway. That must have been around 6 years ago. Ever since then I was writing the script and dealt with whatever I saw happen through these installations and, of course, real-world events always inspire you, and it did here.

This is also a critique of the same museums your exhibit was installed.
Oh yeah. The screenplay took shape when I spent a lot of time traveling around and “investigating” contemporary art museums. We went to countless cities. I must say, it’s very hard to tell the difference between them. Art museums and exhibits have totally lost their connection with the real world we’re living in. You know, they have this piece of neon sign, and they have these big pieces of metal standing in the middle of the room, or whatever. They mean to provoke you with these things, but today it just feels watered-down. Most of these exhibits are not adapting with our current times, hell, most of the art world isn’t. It’s like a ritual or a convention that is just repeating itself.

Your film’s piece-de-resistance is the apeman scene. Did you always have that scene in mind for the film? How did you find Terry Notary?
A lot of time I’m on YouTube. I love looking at different videos. It’s almost an obsession of mine. I YouTubed “monkey imitation,” or “actor imitating monkey,” and I found this fantastic video of his where he was doing just that. It was almost like a demonstration. He would say “OK, so this is what a chimpanzee looks like when they’re walking,” and then he’d show you the difference between a chimpanzee and a gorilla’s movements, it really was something. We immediately contacted him because he was the guy.

What is it about you and making the audience as uncomfortable as possible? It’s at the core of every single movie you’ve made.
I love uncomfortable situations. They really bring a primordial aspect out of the audience member that is very humbling. The apeman scene was very central to the film. I wanted to bring it down to an animalistic level. We are basically herd animals and that’s one of the reasons we get paralyzed by what’s happening onscreen. I’ve always been fascinated in understanding how we behave, and if the answers come in having an apeman terrorize an audience then so be it [laughs].

“The Square” opens on October 27th.

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