The Square

And What You Don't Know About Halfway Houses

Ruben Ostlund wrote and directed “The Square”, which was the winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. I guess it's a victory for changing sensibilities, since this is a comedy, one with traces of scatology and a smattering of pop music. Much of “The Square” generates reasonable laughs, though, there is a Point To Be Made. This Ostlund seems like a pretty pissed off guy.

Claes Bang, a handsome international actor waiting for his big shot so far (playing the villain in “The Girl In The Spider’s Web” wasn’t it!), plays a wealthy curator for a frou-frou art museum in Stockholm. The movie has something of an episodic structure, following the various trials and tribulations that face someone like him trying to hopscotch through an ideological minefield that is the mid-2010’s. Just about every scene finds him pissing someone off, intentionally or otherwise. Sometimes he has a point. Sometimes, he’s being a prick. Sometimes he’s completely full of crap.

One of his adventures follows a lost phone, which in his industry is obviously trouble. For him, it conjures up fears of urban criminality, though it hews awfully close to the old “what if the criminals actually are minorities?” rhetoric, even if it resolves in farce. Later, he wields his class status over a one-night stand (Elizabeth Moss) with whom he does not trust with a used condom. He’s also in the midst of presenting a new exhibit at the museum that is inevitably politicized, even though the goal seems to be an overt depoliticization, the argument being that depoliticization is a luxury only afforded to people like wealthy museum curators.

The standout setpiece, the one you’ll see on the posters, involves Terry Notary, the motion-capture artist behind the physical performances in the “Planet Of The Apes” movies. He is playing a performance artist who, during a banquet, is allowed to run loose, shirtless, pretending to be a simian. He fondles and gropes at participants, many of whom are amused, and then gradually repulsed, as he never breaks character. It’s a bit that’s aggressively unpleasant, built upon the laugh that comes from the refusal of art patrons to truly engage with the art and its ramifications. It’s not really ha-ha funny, but it's ironic. Is it funnier that the movie won the Palme d’Or, earning the highest status a movie could achieve while keeping it inscrutable to the do-nothing bluehairs in the audience? Isn’t it so nice they’re willing to laugh at themselves?

When I was in the halfway house, I was able to see Ostlund’s other Palme d’Or winner, “Triangle Of Sadness”. I told my handlers I was going to see “Infinity Pool”, so technically, I committed a violation, but they didn’t know – more on this later. Clearly Ostlund has a specific point of view, all about engaging with the arthouse audiences, the “limousine liberals”, by mocking their foibles and insecurities. It’s both too obvious and not obvious enough. On one level, Ostlund seems uninterested in interrogating or enlightening the lower classes, since they only function in his movies as adversarial, sometimes condescended-to distractions. On another level, the idea that the elites in society are garbage-eating hypocrites isn’t the freshest conceit. In “The Square”, Bang gives a strong performance that transcends what are inherently the limitations of the project. He is but a conduit to Ostlund’s class hatred, and his ultimate comeuppances at the film’s close reflects a bizarre gunshy nature to Ostlund’s commentary. By “Triangle Of Sadness”, Ostlund had found that bloodthirst, allowing his characters to hunt each other in the wild more or less, But to me he still seems like a little softie.

Federal prison sentences tend to finish in a halfway house. In prison, you are much like furniture, just an object to be moved from place to place. And in a halfway house, you have been outsourced. Halfway houses are generally independent of the federal system, and they function to properly reintegrate people into society so there is no overwhelming culture shock. They all operate independent of each other as well, however, so the rules vary depending on where you go. Your halfway house is located near your last known address, so there are typically chances to interact with home.

COVID created an avalanche of chain reactions all across the system. Before COVID, halfway houses would assist you in finding a job. Once you were employed, they would garnish a portion of your wages to account for the house and board, as halfway house residences are guaranteed a bunk and three meals a day. After COVID, that practice ended. Which sounds like it benefits the inhabitants of the house, except that all motivation to help you find a job fell by the wayside. The job connections that I was promised upon entering my halfway house were largely one of a handful of warehouses that accepted a vanload of inmates every couple of weeks. 

I ended up seeking out employment on my own. But the journey to that point was treacherous. The job you obtain has to be approved by your halfway house counselors. They have to approve the actual work, as well as the location of the job, and the access to public transportation (you are not permitted to drive a car). It is more of a function of the experience one gathers at the halfway house – permission needs to be asked of everything. 

Which brings me to weekend passes. I understand there was a great deal more leniency in other houses. With mine, you had to request a weekend pass more than a week in advance. That weekend pass allotted you several hours to go to a couple of pre-approved locations. Typically, they were limited to restaurants, shopping centers/stores and (obviously my favorite) movie theaters. You had to give the exact amount of time that public transportation would require, the length of the outing, and your moment of return. If you were late, you got written up. And you had to make calls whenever you arrived, and were leaving, a specific location. 

Generally, you had to bring back proof that you were where you claimed – receipts, mostly. But obviously there was always a way around it. So the program was abused constantly. I tried to do my best – I behaved, more or less. But you often can’t get movie times a week in advance. So I was scheduled to see “Infinity Pool”, but that runtime had disappeared. I got creative to find a way to see “Triangle Of Sadness” instead, but it was in violation of my schedule. Indeed, I had to step out of “Triangle Of Sadness” a couple of times to call the halfway house to let them know I was going to see “Infinity Pool” – I was telling a lie, yes, but you can see very easily how this system can be abused. Yes, I’m just seeing a movie. But accountability for others might rely on a very different sort of factors. In other words, like mass incarceration, the process is onerous, sloppy, full of holes, and it doesn’t actually establish any accountability.