Movie Blog: Swedish Director Ruben Östlund At The Walker

One of the hard lessons of Force Majeure, the latest film from the "not yet household-name level but maybe getting there" Swedish director Ruben Östlund, is that life deals most humans a crap hand. And most humans respond to them with childish petulance, at best.

Jonathon Sharp reviewed the film for the WCCO movie blog a few months back, saying "Östlund also shows that while our failures define us, they do so in context."

The movie's premise centers around a typical family who are vacationing in the French Alps at a ski resort. When a controlled avalanche veers a little too close for comfort to their dining deck, the father makes the split-second decision to bolt, leaving his wife and two kids behind to fend for themselves. The rest of the movie dissects the nuclear fallout that results from that snap decision.

It's because of the film's very subject matter -- providing a temperature read on the psychological and emotional state of masculinity circa 2014 -- that I'm almost tempted to say that the currently viraling video of Östlund pitching a fit after discovering that Majeure was not among the five Oscar nominees for best foreign film is deliberately meta. In other words, a stunt.

And yet ...

Well, be it a set-up or be it an actual, raw expression of grief (however ludicrous in the context of life's other potential disappointments), it's a compelling watch. Here's a link (language NSFW; snub happens roughly at the 4:40 mark). It almost feels like an update of the infamous moment caught on live TV in 1976 when Steven Spielberg got snubbed for best director for his blockbuster Jaws. (The film did net a best picture nomination.) "I didn't get it! I wasn't nominated! I got beaten out by Fellini!" was his memorable wail, though as with Östlund, you do get the vague sense that he's overstating his objections, blowing them out into a satire of anguish in order to mask his true, gnawing disappointment. Just like Majeure's patriarch does later on in the film when forced to contemplate the shambles of his machismo.

Lord knows I'm not the only one who wants to ask Östlund himself about the display. Luckily, those of us in the Twin Cities will get the chance this weekend at the Walker Arts Center, where his movies up to and including Majeure are currently the subject of a retrospective. Östlund is set to be in attendance on Sunday ... that is, if he's not still in the bathroom removing his clothing in anger.