Five movies that inspired Ruben Östlund’s style of filmmaking
The Swedish director Ruben Östlund has shared a list of the five movies that inspired his own filmmaking stye. The festival darling has arguably become the most exciting voice to rise from modern cinema over the last decade. His recent work, The Square and The Triangle of Sadness, both picked up the Palme d’Or at Cannes and got the attention of a global audience, putting the director firmly on the map.
Östlund had an interesting start in life in the movie business. He worked on ski resorts in his early career, shooting snowsport videos, a setting Östlund would return to in his sensational drama-comedy Force Majeure. Off the back of his first two features, The Guitar Mongoloid and Involuntary, Östlund made his Gothenburg-set drama A Play – a film that follows a group of middle-class young boys who become the victims of a role-reversing elaborate scheme by a group of non-white kids, in order to steal a mobile phone. It’s an intelligent picture that has passed by many fans of Östlund’s, but it’s arguably one of his finest achievements.
The movies Östlund acknowledges here are interesting, including works from Michael Haneke, Roy Andersson, and Leos Carax. A Haneke entry making the cut is unsurprising as major comparisons have been made with the Austrian auteur’s work. The most surprising entry is Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which Östlund says he admires for the warmth and humanism Forman dedicates to his characters.
The influence of Östlund can already be felt today across the landscape of cinema. The directors Benny Safdie and Nathan Fielder no doubt had Östlund in their sights when creating their brilliant new show, The Curse. Check Östlund discussing the movies that inspired him in the interview with A-Frame below.
Five movies that inspired Ruben Östlund:
Code Unknown (Michael Haneke, 2000)
Haneke’s film opens with a violent encounter that happens on the streets of Paris; from there, the story travels down different strands, following various characters attached to the incident. Pinning the film to a single genre or fully grasping what the story is about is tricky, but Haneke’s themes, such as race, class, gender, urban society, and alienation, are broad and complex. But Östland is struck by Haneke’s craftsmanship as a director, conjuring tension is very everyday moments.
Discussing the director, Östlund said: “Michael Haneke, I love because of the suspense in his movies. Even though he doesn’t have a traditional dramaturgy or narrative, there’s always such a suspense”. A darling of the Cannes Film Festival, Haneke has often frequented the annual show.
Continuing, he said of the film: “As an audience, when I’m watching it, I’m on my toes all the time. You say that Hitchcock is the master of suspense, but for me, Michael Haneke is the master of suspense. And you can tell that he has such a great overview of everything that is going on in the film and in every single scene, so you pay attention to whatever is happening”.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Miloš Forman, 1975)
Starring Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, and Danny DeVito, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest tells the story of a prisoner who fakes insanity and finds himself in an oppressive system where he must overcome the powers that be. What Östland is drawn to is Miloš Forman’s delicate approach to conveying flawed characters, but with a great sense of pathos, saying: “You can feel Miloš Forman’s humanism through everything that he’s making. I admire the way that he portrayed the characters in this film with such a warm heart”.
Continuing, Östlund adds: “If you look at the action taking place in the film, I mean, Jack Nicholson’s character is bringing prostitutes to this place, and it would be questioned in so many ways in our times, but it deals with us human beings in a very generous, forgiving, and loving way, even with the errors and the mistakes that we make. He manages to make this ensemble of people in this hospital so rich, and so alive”.
You, the Living (Roy Andersson, 2007)
When movie lovers speak of the best Swedish filmmakers of all time, Ingmar Bergman is undoubtedly the first to come to mind. Yet, the presence of the modern master, Roy Andersson, makes it a tightly-run contest. “Roy Andersson is a Swedish director who was working with tableaus, where he was building everything in a studio — the most amazing studio sets that I know of in film history,” Östlund said of the distinctive director. “He works with trompe-l’œil, which is basically tricking us with the perspective of the things that he is building in studio”.
Continuing, he adds, regarding his 2007 film You, the Living: “Each one of these scenes, they are always single-take shots, with a fixed camera, and they work on the set for maybe a month or so before they shoot the scene, really carefully painting everything in a certain colour scale and so on. So, the craft of Roy Andersson is extraordinary“.
Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)
Speaking of underrated European filmmakers, Leos Carax certainly fits the bill regarding French cinema. In 2012, Carax released his magnum opus, Holy Motors, sending the world of cinema into a frenzy. “Leos Carax, for me, is visually, the most strong director that we have in contemporary times,” Östlund said. “He is also very wild and unexpected in a way that I think is very inspiring. Holy Motors is an actor, Denis Lavant, that is playing 11 different roles, basically stepping in and out of different characters, and he does it in a very beautiful way”.
Nominated for a Palme d’Or for his perplexing contribution to cinema, Östlund added regarding Carax’s achievement: “He’s playing a motion capture artist in one of the scenes. In another one, he plays the father of a teenage daughter. It’s a tribute to the art of acting, and it’s a tribute to the visual language of cinema. There are things in that film that I will never forget, because they are back in my brain somewhere”.
First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2019)
Female filmmakers are thriving in contemporary cinema, and Kelly Reichardt is one of many bossing the industry. Her 2019 film First Cow is one of her finest contributions to the fold, with Östlund agreeing, as he said: “First Cow was how I got to know about Kelly Reichardt. I got a little bit provoked when they started to talk about her work as slow cinema, because I also think she is very suspenseful. There’s not a single second that is not alive to me”.
Continuing in his thoughts, he adds: “I think that the way that she portrays the action that is going on in First Cow – these young men, where one of them knows how to make muffins and how they start to steal milk – what a different portrayal of the US from the wild west cliché! It’s just so well-directed, and so alive. I’m just impressed”.
