NPR

In 'The Square,' A Scandinavian Satire Of A Modern Art Museum

The Swedish movie which won top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival skewers the cultural elite — the same kind of people who attend Cannes.
Claes Bang plays Christian, director of a contemporary art museum, in <em>The Square.</em>

Sweden is often described as one of the world's most progressive and equal societies. In a new film called The Square, things aren't as perfectly Scandinavian as they seem.

It's a satire of Sweden's cultural elite set in a modern art museum. An early scene pits an American journalist against the museum's director, and the journalist reads him a confusing, academic-sounding passage he once wrote. Filmmaker Ruben Östlund says the museum director's language is real.

"It's quite funny with that text because I'm a professor

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