"What is the point of that? Nothing, that was the point." A critique of art-world pomposity and self-importance. But also an exploration of empathy. Gloriously skewering art world pretension, liberal guilt and the patronising middle class. Horrific or darkly comic depending on your point of view. Satire of the top tier. A film by an artist who recognizes art can't save the world. But it can at least help us laugh at it.

It's interesting to see how this film has divided people down the middle. Genius satire about the art elite or pretentious drivel? Ironically, the same can be said of art itself - it's all in the eye of the beholder, and is down to personal taste. Personally, I thought the satire worked well, and not as pretentious as others have claimed. It played with interesting themes, doing so with both comedy and tragedy. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and despite it's length, it probably deserves a rewatch for a more detailed deconstruction.

The Square is more a series of loosely connected vignettes than one cohesive story. I almost got distracted while watching for the connective tissue, but the only through-line is the search for help and the theme of power imbalance and domination. Despite the long runtime and the feeling of something missing tying it all together, I was never bored, which is testament to the excellent direction and camera work. There is so much beautiful symbolism, giving you always something to look out for in almost every frame.

Rarely do I give up on a movie. Even bad ones I will try to finish to give the filmmaker a chance to complete their dialogue. But this one exceeded my tolerance. It was meant to be a bitting satire about the pretentiousness of art speaking nothing but claiming to have an inspired depth but it ended up being just what it was deriding. I could only hang in for 54 minutes. Despite a great cast, and a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film by the 90th Oscars, this was just a bad, boring, vacant movie. I give it a 3 (bad) out of 10. [Drama?]

Although it is a bit long-winded, this semi-artistic film about art, artists and the whole business around it is quite poignant. Almost every scene feels like it's an art exhibit that makes me viewer (us of course) think about what it happening. The same thing a decent or not so decent artwork does to you. From the first scene where everyone is walking almost weirdly in sync that ultimately is revealed to be something else to the classical statue being removed for something post modern. Something that should have meaning even though - later in the film - the meaning of their modern art is destroyed, scrutinized, mocked, and even changed without other people noticing it. It also tackles the class differences between the pompous rich art snobs and the rest of us, something which is also turned on it's head once "the rest of us" decide a line has been crossed. Where a certain individual presses these/this snob to be better which he is unable to to EVEN THOUGH the whole concept of the square is doing exactly the opposite of that! Which is in itself explained by the idiot marketeers who mock others. Needless to say there's so much packed into this film that you really have to see it for yourself and see it through, attenuative and with thought. Much like you would visit a museum and stroll through it rather then run towards the exit as fast as you can to visit the parks and fountains outside (like we did in art school). The cover image of the "ape man" and that scene itself is one of the best scenes of the film on multiple levels. If this movie was more artsy it would have been art, now it's just a movie that mocks and puts a mirror up against what is called "art" even though it is part of the arts itself. Very well done.