Inspired by circumstances surrounding a 2014 art project devised by Swedish director Ruben Östlund and producer/creative advisor Kalle Boman and very much a summation of the themes that the former had explored in Involuntary (2008), Play (2011) and Force Majeure (2014), this recklessly ambitious satire won the Palme d'or at Cannes. Running well over two hours, it seizes the viewer by the lapels and forces them to watch the decline and fall of a complacent liberal, whose punishment will seem apt or extreme depending on your political perspective. Either way, this is a provocative and often excruciating dissection of post-millennial Western society that channels the influence of Hitchcock, Buñuel, Fellini, and Östlund's deadpan compatriot, Roy Andersson.
Everything starts to go wrong for the wryly named Christian when he strays from his customary habit of ignoring people in need to protect a woman seemingly in peril from a violent partner. In fact, they are part of a pickpocket gang and Christian is so nettled by the humiliation that he leaflets an entire tenement in a rundown part of Stockholm to flush out the perpetrators. His macho gambit backfires, however, as does his bid to reassert his masculinity by sleeping with an American journalist. But things really start to unravel for the hapless museum curator when a video promoting an installation providing a sanctuary of trust and caring goes viral in depicting a blonde waif stepping inside the square and being blown to smithereens with her kitten.
Stuffed with arresting set-pieces revolving around condoms, Tourette's, beggars and human apes, this is often too painfully sharp to be funny, as it riffs on the myriad clashing factors creating the class and cultural chasms that are opening up across the developed world. Tough, but essential viewing.