Ruben Östlund: A Curzon Collection

Description

Collection of works from film-maker Ruben Östlund. ‘The Guitar Mongoloid’ (2004) follows a group of strangers, each leading non-conventional lives, as they go about their days in the city of Jöteborg. ‘Involuntary’ (2008) explores the nature of group behaviour and peer pressure through various intertwining storylines. Birthday boy Villmar (Villmar Bjorkman) is injured by a firework but refuses to let the incident ruin his party; Leffe (Leif Edlund Johansson) and his friends go a bit too far in a drunken prank; two teenage schoolgirls get into trouble after dressing up and posing for a provocative photo shoot; and a teacher delivers a lesson on the power of peer pressure which cites something uncomfortably close to home as its example. In ‘Play’ (2011), three schoolchildren find themselves the victims of a group of young black con artists. After approaching three local boys – two white and one of Asian descent – in a Gothenburg shopping mall, a group of black teenagers accuse one of the boys of owning a stolen mobile phone belonging to one of their brothers, demanding that they accompany them on a short trip so that the brother can resolve the issue. Over the coming hours, as the streetwise black youths play a psychological game, preying on the fears and stereotypes of their victims without ever resorting to direct violence, the reserved, anxious-not-to-offend local kids are led on a march through some of Gothenburg’s more unfamiliar areas. In ‘Force Majeure’ (2014), a Swedish family are enjoying a ski holiday in the alps when they are faced with an impending avalanche on the mountainside. Fearing for their lives, matriarch Ebba (Lisa Loven Kingsli) rushes to protect her children Harry (Vincent Wettergren) and Vera (Clara Wettergren) while her husband Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke) flees the site of the disaster after saving his phone. When the life-threatening avalanche turns out to be little more than snow clouds, Tomas must answer for abandoning his loved ones while struggling to regain their trust and his own status at the head of the family. ‘The Square’ (2017) follows Christian (Claes Bang), a curator for a prestigious art museum in Stockholm who is putting together a new installation entitled ‘The Square’, a space symbolising trust and safety where everyone in society looks out for one another. While Christian hunts for his expensive stolen possessions after being the victim of a petty street crime, the publicity campaign for the museum’s new exhibition begins to gain unintended viral attention. Finally, in ‘Triangle of Sadness’ (2022), high fashion models Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean) are invited on a luxury cruise where they meet an assortment of the upper strata of society. All seems to be going well until disaster strikes, resulting in the ship’s crew and passengers being stranded on an island. With the social elites unable to look after themselves, the hierarchies of power soon begin to turn.