Ruben Östlund Director of Play

To begin with, Östlund’s cinema is no cinema, but rather moving images. There is not a hint of the silver screen nutshell that filters reality to transpose its altered objectivity. While, according to Ruben, il cinema "has created its own universe and merely copies itself", his work shows new perspectives on real life situations and analyzes intensely our behaviour as group animals. Involuntary, Östlund’s previous feature, does not have a single travelling or close-up, but it is far from being a distanced and clinical portrait of our society. On the contrary, in its still frames and long takes it hosts a rare genuine closeness to the action, diving into intimacy and awaking a sense of disturbance and voyeurism in the audience. What drive the 37-year-old are technical limitations, as opposed to the ordinary film techniques used by his peers, and it seems like having to cut a sequence would mean failure for him. When I ask if he has ever really been interested in film he answers "no", adding that "too many directors are focussing on making the best film possible and let the subject fall to second place. It results in the use of conventional tricks and the making of the same film over and over."

Last year, he took home the Golden Bear for best short film in Berlin with Incident by a Bank, a realtime and one-take documentation of a failed bank robbery. What appears to be a surveillance camera pans left and right while zooming in and out within a defined frame, thus intensifying a merely banal action. Inspired by true events, always Östlund’s inspiration, the bank robbery is absolutely pathetic and a total flop; in a few minutes these moving images serve as a myth buster of what cinema taught you about a hold-up, without losing a single quantum of the so-called cinematic experience. Quite the opposite in fact. It can be said without exaggeration, Incident by a Bank is more meaningful in its approach to narration than many feature films. At the same time, it dooms the border between fiction and documentary to a meaningless state.

Ruben Östlund has directed PLAY with the same technique. His first single linear narrative feature recounts the story of five black kids robbing cell phones from three white boys in his native city, Gothenburg. No physical violence is involved, but group dynamics, role games and the kids’ rhetorical skills. "The black boys are using their look, they play on the image that society has already imposed on them", he explains, drawing parallels to the feathered pan flute players using the Western clichés of the native American: "After their show, you can see them eating at Mc Donald’s like anyone else. The difference between us is that the role of the pan flute player is available to them, not to me". In each scene, the protagonist is the place that is shown. Although our perspective is laid on the main characters, every action can be interrupted by what we would otherwise define as extras. In PLAY, every character and object within or without the frame is living its own life; the sense of immersive reality is overwhelming. The real-time effect draws its inspiration from YouTube amateur videos such the famous Battle at Kruger which depicts a confrontation between buffalos, lions and crocodiles. filmed on a handheld digital camcorder, the video is an extraordinary moment and the Swedish director recreates it to perfection in a memorable scene set in one of Gothenburg’s trams.

Animal and human mimicry has become a central theme in Östlund’s work. With PLAY he has once and for all chosen to stand out instead of merging with his environment.

by Maximilien Van Aertryck