THE SQUARE: Ruben Östlund's Cannes winner boldly explores the western world's hypocrisy

OK. Ruben Östlund may indeed be something of a smartypants (as certain reviewers would have you believe), but the "smart" part of that word Mr. Östlund possesses in spades. If Force Majeure and now THE SQUARE are any indication, this fellow is a bold, inventive and creative filmmaker who knows what he wants to say and how to deliver it in an entertaining, surprising, thought-provoking fashion. Anyone who can keep me (not to mention my often less-than-easy-moviegoing spouse) glued to the screen for two-and-one-half hours, as he does with this latest endeavor, and make it feel like maybe only as long as a 90-minute movie, has my vote.

To my mind, what Östlund, shown at right, is doing here is nothing less than indicting today's western society for all its many and major sins. He tackles everything from the art world and its big-money benefactors to family values, PR/marketing, feminism, free speech, the masculine ego, political correctness and more. And nobody gets off the hook: not the wealthy, the poor or those in between. That he does all this while situating his film in Sweden -- one of several Scandinavian countries long known for their progressive, forward-looking, pro-people values -- makes the indictment all the more powerful. And maybe more difficult to accept. Setting the film in the USA would have been too easy, particularly these days. But handing it to us from one of the countries many of us so admire is really rubbing-it-the-fuck-in.

The filmmaker's main character (played by the suddenly memorable Danish actor Claes Bang, above) is named, and probably not coincidentally, Christian, and he's the head of a popular and prestigious art museum where he is planning a new and important show. Divorced but also a reasonably caring father of two girls, he is first shown to us waking up from a nap and having to do yet another interview with a journalist. Then later, on his way to work, when someone (a woman, it sounds like) screams for help but no one immediately comes to her aid, Christian and one other fellow do. From there, surprise topples upon surprise and we are soon utterly hooked.

The Sweden we see here -- from the art museum to the marketing firm who handles its needs, to the poor who beg, and the folk who (mostly) don't pay attention to them -- is expectedly, maybe wonderfully diverse. Pets and children are welcomed in a workplace where women have risen to (or very near) the top. Much of the society we see here is just as we might want it -- but so seldom get it.

And yet, humanity's penchant for hypocrisy keeps spurting out like the cum that fills Christian's condom (post-sex with that journalist, played by the marvelously reliable and increasingly versatile Elizabeth Moss, above), the laying-to-rest of which becomes one of the film's funniest and most provocative set pieces.

The museum's dinner for its benefactors, together with the entertainment provided (above), is another of these. But perhaps the most special and incisive continuing thread throughout the movie pertains to stolen property, all that goes into its retrieval, and the unintended consequences that follow.

How Östlund threads it all together, while making us laugh and wince and drop our jaw is simply a marvel. And to those who call the film, as did The New York Times' A.O. Scott, "complacent, craven and clueless," I can only wonder if they are demanding something sweeter and more humane. Not here, buddy. Human, yes, you'll get plenty of that. And if you do not find some, maybe much, of your own behavior mirrored here (if you are man or woman enough to admit it, that is), I shall be very surprised.

From Magnolia Pictures and running an amazingly swift 152 minutes, The Square opened in the cultural centers a week or so back and hits South Florida this Friday, November 10, in the Miami area at both the Tower Theater and the Miami Beach Cinematheque, as well as elsewhere around the country. Wherever you live, click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.

Daniel Di Grado's ALENA: The Swedes attempt to make a horror movie (and fall on their face)

Supposedly based on a graphic novel by Kim W Andersson, the movie ALENA offers just about all those "graphic novel" tropes, from utterly-obvious to simple-minded-in-the-extreme to piled-mile-high-with-cliches. Watching this film -- for anyone over the age of, say, 21 who has seen a few other horror movies in his or her lifetime -- is rather like serving out a prison sentence that at least offers up a few enticing visuals and lasts only 83 minutes. As co-adapted and directed by Daniel Di Grado, the film pretty much defines the word predictable.

Mr. Di Grado, pictured at left, hands us themes and scenes such as bullying, mean girls, the lonely outsider with a troubled history, deserted classrooms and showers, stalking, and a little lesbian sex and then stirs them all together for maximum effort and minimum fun. The only at all surprising thing here is that our "heroine," the titular Alena (played by Amalia Holm, shown below at Lacrosse) almost never seems in the least concerned about the bullying or possible harm that might come to her. And for good reason. To suggest that she can take care of herself quite well, thank you, is to put it mildly.

Our Alena has a "friend" -- the identity and actuality of which should be apparent from the second time we see her, if not the very first -- who helps (or maybe hinders) Alena along.

She is also surrounded by those mean girls (below), in particular one who proves so very entitled and nasty that you just know she going to get hers -- and big time!

And, yes, there is a new best friend, below, who maybe wants a bit more than mere friendship. As usual, the teachers are weak or foolish or not nearly enough concerned, and if there is a cliche in all this that Mr. Di Grado managed to leave unearthed, I missed it.

Surely the Swedes (the film was made in Sweden) can do better than this so far as something horrifying is concerned. Otherwise, please stick to just about any other genre.

From the KimStim Collection via Icarus Films, the DVD of Alena hits the street this coming Tuesday, May 9 -- for purchase and/or rental. You've been warned.

Babak Najafi's EASY MONEY: HARD TO KILL proves that rare sequel to outshine its originator

Dark, action-packed, fast-paced and all too believable, EASY MONEY: HARD TO KILL is better than the original -- from which, if you recall my coverage of that earlier and overpraised twaddle, you might not expect much. Yet this sequel indeed delivers the goods you'll want from a smart, tight crime thriller -- Scandinavian variety. Interestingly enough, the sequel simply carries right on from the point at which the former film ended: with much of the cast dead, dying or injured and our near-hero caught by the authorities.

The difference, it seems, lies in the choice of director and co-writer, Babak Najafi, who outshines the filmmaker of the original (Daniél Espinosa) by leaps and bounds, sticking to immediate action and character over tired (and, as it turns out, unnecessary) history, love and class clichés, and making that fast action coincide with character. The hints Najafi gives us of background and history proves better than the lengthy and obvious scenes used by Espinosa -- and thankfully there is nothing here nearly as silly as the chase-by-city-bus scene, followed by the even worse "Oh, look, I've just conveniently found a gun here in the bushes!" moment. My spouse, who watched the movie with me and had not seen the original, found it completely understandable and utterly riveting. I felt the same, while also realizing how well Part Two builds from Part One. (Part Three, with yet a new director/co-writer on board, has apparently already been released in Scandinavia and The Netherlands, so we'll eventually see how this crime tale trio turns out.)

Picking up from the end of Part One, EM: H2K finds JW (the lean and lovely Joel Kinnaman, above, who is just debuting today as the new Robocop) in prison for his offenses but getting a day out of the can for good behavior. A smartypants computer maven, he's been working on new software that will be a real boon to the banking industry.

Not only is there little honor among thieves of the hardened criminal variety, JW's wealthy partner is bereft of same, too, and soon our poor, fish-out-of-water boy is once more involved in something illegal via one of the men he earlier helped put in prison (not to mention in a wheelchair), and so JW is on the run again.

Both parts of Easy Money have involved a slew of characters, with three especially important: our foolish but relatively decent JW; the petty criminal, Jorge (Matias Varela, above); and a higher-up-in-the-criminal food-chain, Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic, below).

This time another character, Mahmoud (played by Fares Fares, below and on the receiving end of that gun), up to his ears in criminal debt, takes on more importance. All four men are striving to find a place for themselves and/or provide for their families: JW tries to rise above his lower-class roots, while the other three are immigrants from various places. None has managed to join the "mainstream," and while the movie makes clear Scandinavia's forward-looking stance on immigration, it also shows how difficult it can be for immigrants, once resident in their new country, to be able to truly "join" it. Consequently, being all-too human, our fellows end up thrashing about in crime and betrayal, while trying to do the right thing -- occasionally, at least.

Women are kept to a minimum in this chapter of the trilogy, and the movie is better for it. The one important female character is another immigrant, a young woman (an excellent Madeleine Martin, below, left) bound by sex trafficking and her nasty captors, who makes a move for freedom at precisely the time when one of our men is about to be eliminated. While this is indeed coincidental, the scene is handled so well that you'll barely have time to draw a breath.

In fact, timing, pacing, and characters who are both interesting and believable, along with all the rest that go into making a good crime thriller, are here and used to their utmost, without rubbing anything in. Mr. Najafi knows his stuff, and I hope we'll see more from him, even if he isn't directing the third installment.

Meanwhile, this one -- running 99 minutes and coming to us via the increasingly interesting and necessary distributor Cinedigm, which has made a lot of good choices of late -- opens Friday, February 14, in New York City at the Cinema Village. Elsewhere theatrically? No idea. But you can, simultaneous with its theatrical release, view it via iTunes and many local VOD platforms.

Lee Liberman on last year's BFLF Oscar nominee: Nicolaj Arcel's fascinating A ROYAL AFFAIR

First, A ROYAL AFFAIR (2012) is a story of doomed love that works with a glass of wine and a tissue box. Second, it's a true tale from Denmark that oddly creates context for our own American Revolution. A.O Scott, The New York Times movie critic, rightly called it an "advanced placement bodice-ripper" for its entertaining and useful blend of romance, scandal, and history. Evidently based on both the 1999 book, "The Royal Physician's Visit," by Per Olov Enquist, and "Prinsesse af blodet," an erotic novel by Bodil Steensen-Leth, the film was directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel (shown below), nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and won a Golden Globe in 2013. It streams on Netflix.

The story unfolds in the Eighteenth-Century Age of Enlightenment when intellectual ferment began to embrace the individual, science, and reason, displacing Catholic dogma as life's filter.

Denmark in the early 1700's is run by Catholic dogmatists out of step with political change -- their Denmark, they believe, is the last decent outpost in a depraved Europe. The conser-vative privy council is in league with Dowager Queen Juliane Marie, pious stepmother of the infantile, mentally ill young King Christian VII, whom Juliane hopes to replace with her own son. The council runs the country coaxing Christian to sign its decrees. An arrange-ment is made with King George III of England to marry off his 15-year-old sister to Christian. (Yes -- the same King George who taxed our colonies into revolution).

Played by lovely young Swedish actress shown above, Alicia Vikander (Kitty in Anna Karenina ), British Princess Caroline Mathilde sets foot on her new homeland as a hopeful bride to discover that her spouse is infantile and very unpleasant husband material. They have a son, Frederik, and soon the council hires a doctor to treat Christian who wallows in brothels and makes a spectacle of himself in public.(Two modern theories of his condition are schizophrenia and Porphyria. In this telling, it looked to me more like bi-polar illness combined with mental retardation.) 

Christian's new German doctor, Johann Friedrich Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen, shown above, right, and below, left), brought with him from Europe the Enlightenment era writings of Diderot, Voltaire, and Rousseau. To describe Struensee in our own terms, he believed in the 99% rather than the top 1%. He could have been John Adams who famously said "Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write." (Adams and the German doctor were born two years apart.) Before his Danish assignment, 'free-thinker' Struensee wrote papers on issues of freedom and individual human rights.

Young Queen Caroline, enamored of both Age of Reason thinking and its messenger, collaborated with Struensee to excite and influence Christian in a more humane policy direction. They had gained some leverage, as Struensee was able to manage Christian's infantile behavior and gain his confidence and friendship. They began by coaching Christian to propose that the city sewers and associated stench and health hazards be cleaned up -- "a war on shit". More suggestions follow --smallpox inoculation, a home for unwanted children and unwed mothers. Conservative privy council Minister Guldberg's disgusted assessment is that Christian's new ideas practically reward women for lechery (where have we heard that lately).

As new laws are suggested, the council blames the young Queen (now pregnant with Struensee's child) and the Doctor ("the foreigner") for Christian's interference in state business. They attempt to have Struensee arrested, but Christian by now differentiates bad government from good. He dismisses the entire council and installs the doctor as his chief and only minister. Struensee's tenure was under two years, but it jump-started backward Denmark by abolishing corporal punishment and torture of prisoners, ending capital punishment for theft, permitting freedom of the press, reducing revenues to nobility, banning slave trade, et al. Minister Guldberg says to Struensee, "You are destroying my country," to which the doctor replies, "Who is destroying the country: the King, or someone who believes the earth was created in six days?"

The affair is discovered and a palace coup leads to the doctor's demise and the banishment of Queen Caroline. Denmark regresses again until years later, Christian and Caroline's son, 16-year-old Prince Frederik, supported by his father, expels the old guard and reinstates the enlightened rule of Christian and Dr. Struensee. Frederik VI ruled for 55 years and is said to have expanded on his father's reforms by abolishing serfdom and liberating the peasants.

Struensee died in 1772 shortly before the upcoming American and French Revolutions. The commoner doctor's writings and actions were part of the firmament that led our founders and French citizenry to press for individual freedoms. (Our founders were not gods but products of European Age of Reason thinking.)

The players in the film are gaining presence in the US, especially Mr. Mikkelsen -- Danish actor and celebrity who starred in The Hunt, Flame and Citron, and After the Wedding, all worth watching on Netflix. (He's also had parts in a number of big budget American films.) Ms Vikander's profile here is about to expand with coming releases of The Seventh Son and The Man From UNCLE (where she has the female lead opposite Henry Cavill). Both Mikkelson and Vikander began their careers in dance, evident in a fleeting, magnetic moment of heated restraint as they dance together on the evening their affair is consummated.

The liveliest material goes to Mikkel Boe Følsgaard (shown above and below) as young King Christian VII, for which he won a best actor award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2012. Følsgaard creates a believable portrait of a mentally ill child-man unable to function as an adult while having innate sense. He is sympathetic as he vacillates between infantile and courageous acts, blossoming under the intelligent caring of his wife and doctor.

It was quite a three-way until stepmother Queen Juliane and Minister Guldburg used the discovery of the affair to carry out a palace coup and turn the clock back on their country.

You can stream A Royal Affair now via Netflix or Amazon Instant Video, or watch it on DVD or Blu-ray, for either rental or purchase.

This post was written by Lee Liberman, 

who will be joining us now and again 

--maybe weekly--to cover the occasional film.

Her ability to weave both history and criticism 

into her writing is much appreciated by TrustMovies. 

Fredrik Gertten's BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!* is a vitally important documentary in so many ways

The abuses of corporate power worldwide -- but especially here in the USA -- have seldom been seen so clearly and powerfully as in this 2012 documentary, BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!*, by Swedish filmmaker and journalist Fredrik Gertten, a kind of follow-up to his equally strong doc titled simply Bananas!*, which was released (or at least tried to be released) in 2009. That most of America has barely heard of the earlier film -- and why -- is the subject of Gertten's latest, which doubles as an indictment of Dole, in my estimation one of the sleaziest corporations in the world (but, gheesh, there's so much competition!).

I was lucky enough to seek out the earlier film -- a poster of which is shown at right -- a couple of years ago, through, I believe Greencine, though neither Greencine nor Netflix now seem to stock it for rental (you can purchase it for just $12 at the site of its U.S. distributor, Oscilloscope Films), and it is very much worth seeing for two reasons: It tells the story of Dole workers in Nicaragua who were poisoned, made sterile and in some cases killed by chemical pesticides Dole used. The documentary shows that the corporation knew of this and did nothing about it.

In the new film, Mr. Gertten, shown at left, details the ways in which Dole tried to stop Bananas!* from ever reaching movie theaters (or any other venues), beginning with its really disgusting use of its money and power to cow the L.A. Film Festival from showing the film, and The Los Angeles Times (as well as so many other media outlets) from covering it in any kind ofa positive light. Learning how all this came to be is fascinating indeed, rather like watching a serpent stalk, terrify and finally strike its victim. Calling Gertten's doc a "fabrication: and a "lie" (without, of course, having actually viewed it) and then beginning a campaign to render it perceived by all as worthless, Dole does its job with remarkable ease -- and tons of help from our supposedly unbiased, "watchdog" media.

Notes one interested party along the way, "There isn't as much investment by the media in investigative journalism now as in the past." Indeed. Instead corporate press releases are simply accepted and used as "news."

Then we get to the Astroturfing experience, in which much money is spent to start a supposedly "grass roots" movement against Gertten and his film. This includes the "paid" muddying of reputations (and conversely, restoring genuinely muddy reputations) by the purchase of anonymous folk who will post on Google whatever their "employer" wants them to say.

As another of these shining examples of corporate sleaze posts on his web site as a selling point: "It's easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation."  That might go down as the "watchphrase" of our time.

Interestingly enough, it is not anything or anyone in America who comes to rescue this battered filmmaker. (Although he does have a very fine and decent lawyer -- above, right -- on tap in America.) Instead the help comes from his home country of Sweden. Why and how will lift your spirits and prove that even a small country like Sweden can fight for freedom of speech and art and culture (that's one of the country's bloggers, below).

Why, you might wonder, is Dole so insistent on stopping the Bananas!* documentary? Because, notes that lawyer, Dole is frightened to death of the lawsuits that could stem from what is shown and stirred up in the original film.

Big Boys Gone Bananas!* is a vital documentary for several reasons. It offers a look at how our current corporations are running not just their own business but film festivals (above),  communities, cities, states and entire countries and, of course, us. It demonstrates the continuing creep of globalization. It shows us how the internet can be used for lies and defamation, and how difficult -- but not impossible -- it is to challenge this. And it, together with the original Bananas!* doc, underscores yet again how important to all of us, save the very wealthy, are the ever-declining rights of workers around the globe.

And, yes, even if you mumble, "Sure, sure, but we know all this already," trust me: You won't have seen anything quite like this little movie, in which you can observe step by step how a corporation rides roughshod over something it wants to stop/destroy. You owe it to yourself to seek out both films. The later of the two can now be streamed via Netflix and Amazon Instant Video or purchased on DVD. (You can also purchase the original film at Amazon.) On Netflix (I don't know about the other sources), the streaming includes introductory and closing remarks by lauded documentarian, Alex Gibney, plus an interview with the film's director, Fredrik Gertten.

Charlotte Brändström/Hans Rosenfeldt's version of Henning Mankell's WALLANDER: THE REVENGE opens in NYC & Los Angeles

Made for Swedish television, which, if this particular 90-minute episode is any indication, is better and more adult than American network TV (are we surprised?), HENNING MANKELL'S WALLANDER: THE REVENGE (that'll fill or kill a marquee!) is also better than the ersatz-Swedish version that starred Kenneth Branagh and aired here a couple of years ago via Public Television. Why? The first thing you'll notice is that this film is much less glossy. A sense of reality hangs over everything from police headquarters and individual domiciles to the quiet (until very recently) little town itself.

This film is said to be the first episode of the original Swedish Wallander series, and its director, Charlotte Brändström (shown at right), and writer, Hans Rosenfeldt, do a good job of introducing the characters, as well as bringing things to a satisfactory conclusion, while leaving just enough interesting loose ends to make us want to continue watching. Which is handy, since the movie's theatrical distributor, Music Box Films, this past Friday released to VOD, iTunes, Amazon and Vudu thirteen of these Wallander "movies" for our further delectation. DVD versions will be available this coming Tuesday, May 29.

Bad things suddenly happen in the town in which Wallander abides -- explosions, murders -- at the same time as a controversial (read Muslim) museum exhibit is opening. The question of terrorism immediately rises, the army is called in, and politicians get into the act. What is going on -- and why?

As police-procedurals go, this particular Wallander is a pretty good one: relatively fast-moving, but never too fast to omit the smart detail or character trait that helps enrich the whole. And the character of Wallander himself is brought to life so much better than did the PBS version. Kenneth Branagh is a fine actor, but he was spotlighted far too heavily in that series and finally made to seem like such an icon that his every moment and move had to register strongly. Too strongly. Krister Henriksson (shown above), the Wallander of this series, plays his character as simply a man: decent, old-fashioned (he's got some things to learn about today's women), brave, and intelligent but no Einstein. He surrounds himself with good people and makes the best use of them. Henriksson gives a quiet and increasingly strong performance. He's memorable without ever being showy.

The only other "known" cast member to most Americans will be Lena Endre, at right, who plays the Swedish equivalent of a district attorney who must work with Wallander. She's lovely -- and as watchable as ever.

Perfectly good entertainment on any level, this Wallander still has the look and feel of television. But if you're hankering for a big-screen movie experience, it'll be opening on either coast: this coming Friday, June 1, in New York City at the Cinema Village, and on Friday, June 8, in the Los Angeles area at the Laemmle Music Hall 3.