The Square by Ruben Ostlund is The 2017 Winner of The Palme d'Or and one of the best features of this century, also one of my favorites – you find more than five thousand notes on favorites of mine, and those from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists, along with reviews of magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites on my blog and YouTube channel at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you may wish to be the fourth to subscribe

 

The Square by Ruben Ostlund is The 2017 Winner of The Palme d'Or and one of the best features of this century, also one of my favorites – you find more than five thousand notes on favorites of mine, and those from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists, along with reviews of magnum opera from The Greatest Books of All Time and other sites on my blog and YouTube channel at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html you may wish to be the fourth to subscribe

 

 

10 out of 10

 

I have watched Sentimental Value https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/sentimental-value-written-by-eskil-vogt.html recently with my daughter, and this made me think of another impressive Scandinavian film maker, well, two actually, for I have started looking at the chefs d’oeuvre of Ingmar Bergman as well

 

Ruben Ostlund has already won two Palms d’Or, in a short period of time, and seeing as he is only fifty-two, we may see him getting more trophies, notwithstanding that, The Square and Triangle of Sadness are two magnificent motion pictures, with a complex dynamic, important themes, mixing humor and drama, ridicule and tragedy

 

The main character is Christian and Claes Bang is mesmerizing in this difficult role, where we have almost all the spectrum of emotions, even if the manner is minimalistic, which is as near perfection as possible, anger is not rendered with bursts of screaming, though there is some shouting, everything here is as it should be

Christian is the chief art curator of The Royal Museum – I don’t think they refer to The One patronized by the monarch – and they have an Argentinian artist coming with a show, The Square is the main exhibit, the space where all are equal and protected, or something like that, there is a plaque saying something to that effect

 

While coming out on one of the main plazas, the hero (or anti-hero) is the witness of a sort of attack, this woman asks for help, and as he is submitted by another man, they both reject the apparent abuser, only to find after this incident that he had his wallet, money, phone and cuffs stolen – here I doubt, for he found the cuffs later

He talks about this with a man who works for him, and while they look for a solution, they have the phone tracked, see the building where it is, and then they come up (maybe it was the subordinate, but I forget) with the idea that they should put a threatening message in the boxes of all who live there, to get the things back

 

Racism, the difference between those who have and the destitute is shown with subtlety and humor: there is this beggar woman who came from my country, who showed an impertinence so blatant as to become humorous in some way: she wanted chicken – demanded imperiously in fact – without onions and acted emphatically

Christian gets the food for her, paid by him, and says get your onions out yourself, something like that, and I though this and other details excellent, in that it is simplistic to say ‘poor people are good, the rich are like Musk and The Orange Estupido’, when in reality, some poor folks can be like this ghastly beggar, commanding the benefactors

 

Sex is present, and the depiction is humorous and sophisticated, we also have a chimpanzee, I do not get the significance of that, the museum wants advertising for the exhibition, and they hire these ‘creative types’ who explain the need to grab the attention in the first 10 seconds, or else the internet moves on, ergo the crisis

They put on YouTube a video with a blonde child, begging and exploding in ten seconds, and that creates a scandal, only Christian has much more on his hands, a boy is accused by his parents, when they get that accusing letter sent in their building to all tenants, and he comes to ask for amends, only to be pushed down the stairs…Force Majeure is another very good movie written and directed by Ruben Ostlund https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/03/force-majeure-by-ruben-ostland.html

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’