The Square challenges in so many ways

PALME d’Or winner The Square has finally been released in Australia, eight months after it played at the Sydney Film Festival last year.

The Swedish-German-French-Danish co-production set in the boujee Swedish art world is a work of high satire that also features one of the most memorable and uncomfortable cinematic scenes you’ll ever encounter.

At times a searing social commentary, the darkly funny The Square is an indictment of the decadence of upper-middle-class inner city liberals and their cluelessness to everyone outside of their privileged bubbles.

Directed by Ruben Ostlund (Force Majeure), the film stars Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West and Terry Notary.

Christian (Bang) is the feted curator at an art museum in Stockholm — he’s a respectable kind of guy with a beautiful apartment, darling children and an enviable job. Walking to work one morning, his wallet and phone is stolen by a con artist as part of an elaborate ruse that preyed on his sensibilities.

He tracks his phone down remotely to a high-rise apartment block in a working class neighbourhood. Christian writes a letter asking for his possessions back and slips it in every letterbox in the building. His items are returned but then the day after, he is contacted by the drop location to inform him of another package.

There, a younger boy furiously demands Christian retract his letter and apologise to him and his family because his parents believe him to be a thief. The angry boy promises to rain chaos down on him.

Chaos does ensue, puncturing Christian’s seemingly perfect life, but not just because of the boy. He’s also launching an exhibit at the museum of a new work whose marketing plan becomes extremely problematic. All the while, he meets an American journalist (Moss) with whom he has an awkward post-coital negotiation.

The tagline for the installation the museum is mounting is: “The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring, within it we all share equal rights and obligations”. The intention of the installation appears to be exactly the kind of smug and self-congratulatory behaviour Ostlund is skewering, which the director effectively juxtaposes with the countless homeless people the well-heeled breeze past, or Christian’s unthinking act with the letter.

Bang’s portrayal of the well-mannered and wimpish Christian feels natural as his veneer of civility and respectability begins to crumble, plunging him to depths he thought impossible.

At two hours and 30 minutes, The Square is unusually long, but it doesn’t play like it. The film moves swiftly from one set-piece to the next, keeping the momentum up.

The showpiece of The Square is a fancy dinner in a gilded ballroom to launch the exhibition, where the who’s who of the Sweden’s art world gather to rub shoulders, clink champagne glasses and congratulate each other for how cultured they are. But it all falls apart when a performance piece goes too far, exposing the fragility of the line between man and beast.

This minutes-long sequence featuring motion capture actor Notary as Oleg, an artist that acts like an ape, is a mesmerising and deeply challenging sequence to watch — you won’t be able to look away as you squirm in your seat, laden with social anxiety.

The scene uses a visual language audiences can’t process as easily as the more ubiquitous rape and violence you see in films. To say much more will be to spoil the full force of its effect but the level of discomfort you’ll feel will be unlike anything else.