MIFF: Calling all chiropractors

I didn't realize how truly diabolical the seats are in the Comedy Theatre until I saw a really long movie there.

I've made little comments on my blog throughout MIFF about this venue and its uncomfortable seats, which are probably the only drawback of an otherwise gorgeous classic theater. But so far I'd been pretty lucky. Of the four other features I'd seen there this year, The Killing of a Sacred Deer was the longest at two hours, while the shortest, Fantastic Planet, was a mere 72 minutes. And with Deer, that was an engrossing two hours, never mind that I had the privilege of sitting in the isolation of my own one-seat row.

By contrast, the 142 minutes of Ruben Ostlund's The Square nearly killed me.

I was on the end of something like the sixth row, otherwise quite a good seat in this theater. Arriving uncharacteristically early, a full 15 minutes before showtime, won me that seat.

But by the 70-minute mark or so -- knowing I was only halfway through -- I longed for that luxurious single seat in the front row.

I was constantly grinding my neck back and forth, extending my arms way above my head, cracking the bone just below my right wrist the way someone would crack knuckles, and scanning the theater to see if there was possibly a better seat for me somewhere. The film was surprisingly not sold out, surprising as The Square won the Palme d'Or at Cannes three months ago. But from my vantage point, I could not see anything more advantageous, and especially not across to the other side of the theater where my Deer seat may have been empty and waiting for me. Instead, I just silently grumbled as I tried to avoid intermingling my legs with the old man sitting next to me, who suffered in a similar silence.

How much was The Square responsible for the experience I was having? It's hard to say. This is a pretty entertaining movie that had a number of scenes that really made me laugh, not to mention a few that made me think. But it's also a bit of a discombobulated mess, full of plot strands with no resolution and ideas that often come off as half-baked. Two likable English-speaking stars, Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West, are kind of lost in this messy shuffle, exemplifying both the half-baked ideas and the plot strands without resolution. I can see why a body like Cannes awarded it the top prize, but I can also see why this movie won't work for everybody, and why not quite fully working for me combined with the torture devices they call seats to make the whole thing a bit of an endurance test.

I should say that The Square does a lot right. In fact, it reminded me in rather significant ways of some films I consider the best of the decade so far. It's got the same interest in interpersonal dynamics across social classes as A Separation, including some of that film's themes about our responsibilities to each other. The square of the title is, literally, a physical symbol of our social contract, executed in the form of a modern art exhibit at a Stockholm museum. And in form and structure it probably most closely resembles my #1 of last year, Toni Erdmann, another very long multi-lingual comedy from a European director, sharing that film's reliance on bizarre set pieces for much of its humor. There's even some of the absurdism of a director I've already indirectly referenced in this piece, Yorgos Lanthimos.

But it made me think long and hard about how much of a role the circumstances of the viewing play in our enjoyment of a film. Take Erdmann, for example. That movie is a further 20 minutes longer than The Square, but last year's MIFF programmers had the good sense to schedule it at the Forum, which has far better seating -- in fact, seating good enough that I don't really notice it one way or another. It was not a chore to watch a 160-minute movie at the Forum. What if I'd had to watch Toni Erdmann at the Comedy Theatre? Instead of it being my #1 of last year, might it have been my #30? The Square doesn't pack Erdmann's emotional wallop, so I don't think the reverse will be true, that a movie that will probably be somewhere around #30 (if not lower) might have been #1 under different circumstances. But it does make a person wonder.

If the 142 minutes in those seats weren't long enough, there was a delay in getting things started, plus I was seated a bit earlier than usual as a result of my earlier arrival. Then a further delay came on behalf of the director himself. From a beach in Greece, Ostlund recorded a selfie video to greet us at the festival. What at first I thought was a charming and nicely personal idea -- he was there flitting around with a daughter who must have been about 12 -- quickly grew tiresome as he started prattling on about the theme of the movie and why he made it. It must have gone on for three minutes. Thirty seconds would have been about right. It ended up feeling a bit like a preview of the way his movie would sort of prattle on about nothing.

Again, don't get me wrong, it's a good movie. I think I must just not be quite on Ostlund's wavelength. I didn't like Force Majeure as much as most people seemed to, and that figures to be my destiny on The Square as well. Both got 3.5 stars from me.

Though without feeling like someone was cramming me inside a box for more than two hours, who knows, maybe it would have gotten a four.

On the way out, as I was pushing my way down the sidewalk with a bit of the mad panic of a person finally free from a claustrophobic space, a woman in line for the next movie called out to me. She wanted to know if I wanted to go, because they had an extra ticket.

It was all I could do to keep from laughing at her.

Okay, I am DONE with the Comedy Theatre for 2017. And almost done with MIFF. Just two more screenings on Saturday to wrap things up.

And oh yeah, I thought I should tell you -- even though the movie ran long and I was in serious danger of missing the start, I never like to miss an easy opportunity to squeeze in another movie. So I beat feet to the closest regular cinema, just two blocks away, in time for a screening of The Dark Tower. It was the perfect contrast to the experience I'd just had. There were only two other people there (on opening night!) and the seats were large and luxurious.

The movie sucked, but as a purely physical experience of indulgent freedom for my appendages, it's one I won't soon forget.