Category: Film

At first glance, Ruben Östlund’s The Square appears solely to be a satirical look at an art world off the rails. Yet the film is interested in a broader social critique; we ourselves are not exempt from contributing to the insane ongoings of the fictional X-Royal Museum in Sweden.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, The Square has no shortage of overblown on-screen ridiculousness, from painting chimpanzees to palace raves, but we recognize realities of the contemporary art world and its penchant for elitism within it.

 

 

Direct parallels can be seen between events at the X-Royal and those in real-world art spaces. Security personnel watch museum visitors give galleries barely a second of their attention, and a millennial duo from an outside marketing agency infuriate with their self-assurance. Museum events drip in inscrutable art-world language, and a custodian casually vacuums up an installation made up of gravel mounds.

Through his provocative live performance, “The Jungle,” the artist Oleg—brilliantly played in all his discomforting glory by a bare-chested, crawling Terry Notary—runs through a grand dinner gala attacking event attendees. The limits of violence that we are trained to transform and accept in the name of art are tested here.

 

 

In Claes Bang’s performance as the suave X-Royal curator Christian Nielsen, we see the larger questions that Östlund raises about the art world and its detachment from reality. The film regularly spotlights this character’s interactions with disenfranchised members of Swedish society, specifically beggars and panhandlers. As the film shifts between the cash-flush private museum and the outside world, the curator struggles to balance these unwelcome interruptions to his work and family lives.

 

 

Though The Square might let on as a film centered solely on bashing indulgent art-world practices, its commentary extends far beyond to implicate members of any audience.

I have only seen two movies about nunhood in my entire life, both of them in the Michigan Theater. One was “The Little Hours” (starring Aubrey Plaza) and the other was Margaret Betts’s “Novitiate.” The two of them couldn’t be more different. A quick You Tube search will reveal why.

“Novitiate” is about nunhood– specifically, nunhood in 1960’s America, at the time of Vatican II, or the period of reform within the Catholic Church. Mother Superior, (played by Melissa Leo), is a menacing presence who looms over the women within the covenant, and her oscillations from benign and benevolent to frenzied and vindictive are played out very well. The girls are both extremely pious and devout and yet retain a girlish romanticism, explored in several scenes. The film maintains that the nun is a woman who is the bride of God, who dedicates her whole life and being to that sacrificial love. And this idea is seized upon by the girls and the other nuns within the covenant with a dedication that is tinged with borderline desperation, especially by Mother Superior. The Church is her entire life and identity, as it is for the other nuns, especially Kathleen; without God, what is there?

As a non-Catholic with no real background knowledge on what it means to be a nun, I was kind of concerned about how Catholicism and its practices would be portrayed in this film. Would nunhood be sensationalized and demonized? Would the “sexy nun” trope make an appearance? The trailer suggested a bit of a horror-based,  trope with explicit acts of sin and punishment, but the actual film is more as a slow buildup of psychological pressure and tension. Although the film opens with Kathleen’s life, it pans out to encompass the worries and troubles concerning almost all of the sisters within the cohort; namely, the main concern for many Sisters is the fear that their sacrifices are being made in vain. The penances that were slightly exaggerated in the movie trailer are less dramatic; the more impactful punishments are the psychological ones.

While I enjoyed the film’s cast and plot, I do think that some characters were underdeveloped and others were suggested to be of importance, only to be cast away later. Many characters dipped in and out of the film in quick succession, which made it a little difficult to focus on the main ones. However, I thought that Kathleen was a very interesting character; some might argue that she is a “Mary Sue” character, too pious to be true; yet her steadfast commitment to her faith only makes her eventual demise all the more compelling and explicit.

Unfortunately, “Novitiate” is no longer playing at the Michigan Theater. However, if you ever get the chance to watch it, I would highly recommend.

(Picture credits: IMBD)