The European politics of “hostipitality” in the cinema of Ruben Östlund: The Square (2017) as a case-study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24310/Fotocinema.2020.vi21.10005Keywords:
Ruben Östlund, European cinema, postmodernity, space, hospitality, exceptionalismAbstract
This paper analyses The Square (2017), the last film by contemporary Swedish director Ruben Östlund, through the lens of hospitality theory. Working against the ideal of an alleged “European dream”, as per Jeremy Rifkin (2004), we will argue that Östlund’s cinema explores the contradictions between the discourses on European hospitality and their materialisation in the spaces of late capitalism. In particular, we will explore the thematic and technical landmarks of his production within the context of Swedish and European cinema, namely, his personal take on the approach to the Other and his detached, almost anthropological analysis of the ethics at stake within the public and private spaces of contemporary Western societies. The Square will be taken as an example of the impossibility of an ethics of hospitality, suggesting as a conclusion that the contemporary European reality has more in common with the Derridean idea of “hostipitality” than with an idealised European dream.
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