The European politics of “hostipitality” in the cinema of Ruben Östlund: The Square (2017) as a case-study

Authors

  • Mónica Fernández Jiménez Universidad de Valladolid, España
  • Sofía Martinicorena Zaratiegui Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España
  • Inés Paris Arranz Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24310/Fotocinema.2020.vi21.10005

Keywords:

Ruben Östlund, European cinema, postmodernity, space, hospitality, exceptionalism

Abstract

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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Author Biographies

  • Mónica Fernández Jiménez, Universidad de Valladolid, España

    Mónica Fernández Jiménez received her undergraduate diploma from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and subsequently obtained a Master of Arts at Leiden Universiteit, where she graduated cum laude. She is currently a fully funded PhD candidate at the Universidad de Valladolid where she is writing her thesis on Caribbean-American literature under the supervision of Dr. Jesús Benito Sánchez and where she also teaches courses on American culture. She is interested in Caribbean-American migrant fictions from a hemispheric, postmodern perspective. Accordingly, she has published articles dealing with authors such as Claude McKay, Junot Díaz, Derek Walcott or Jamaica Kincaid. She is part of an ERASMUS + project (Hospitality and European Cinema) dealing with the representation of migrants in European cinema.

  • Sofía Martinicorena Zaratiegui, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España

    Sofía Martinicorena Zaratiegui holds a degree in English from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2013-2017) and an MSc in US Literature from the University of Edinburgh (2017-2018). She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, with her thesis focusing on spatial narratives in contemporary US literature. Among her broad research interests are United States literature, space studies, US nationalism, ideology and critical theory.

  • Inés Paris Arranz, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España

    Inés Paris Arranz is a PhD student at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Her field of research is based on the problematics of identity through language as a violence tool and the body as space, inside of the gender and feminist studies theory. She owns a BA in English Studies, a BA in Drama as well as a MA on American Studies with a specialization in literature and visual culture. She has participated as part of the organizing committee in different conferences in the Universidad Complutense as well as the Instituto Franklin. Her publications range from essays to poetry. She is also pursuing audio-visual translation studies.

References

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Published

2020-07-24

Dimensions

PlumX

Issue

No. 21 (2020): The “European Dream”: Narratives of a Crisis in Film and photography

Section

ARTICLES

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How to Cite

The European politics of “hostipitality” in the cinema of Ruben Östlund: The Square (2017) as a case-study. (2020). Fotocinema. Revista científica De Cine Y fotografía, 21, 221-242. https://doi.org/10.24310/Fotocinema.2020.vi21.10005
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