Are you constantly working on something or do you wait for the next idea to strike you?
No, but the next idea has striked me already. I’m interested in the change of attitude when it comes to society over Sweden, and for an example, in 2008 they built the first gated community in Sweden. There haven’t been any before that. A gated community is to say, “What’s inside the gates, we’re taking responsibility of, but what’s outside we don’t care.”
I’m familiar with them. We have them in Los Angeles and they’re creepy, if you ask me.
And I mean, what I have been interested in, the topic of the film… The film is called The Square. It’s about how we have lost the feeling of common responsibility, that we have a shared responsibility over society. It was also clear in my previous film, because I was working with a film where very young boys were robbing other boys in the center of the city where I live, and there were so many adults who saw this and no one actually did anything.
I compare that with the ‘50s, because when my father was brought up his parents put an address tag across his next and let him out on the street to play. At that time we saw other adults as people who could help our children, and now we see other adults as someone who is threatening our children. And I think the attitude has changed. I don’t think people are more dangerous nowadays.
“We have lost the feeling of common responsibility, that we have a shared responsibility over society.”
The ratio of good to bad people is probably about the same.
Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Maybe society can change, and if the economical [imbalance] is too big, then we are creating a society that has a lot of conflicts of course. But what I interested in this is, it’s both a change of society but also of behavioristic perspective. I mean, we are getting bystanders, when we see things happening on the street we don’t know who has the responsibility, because we are herd animals also.
But the film is like, there is a city in Europe where they have created a square. The square is a white mark square, a physical square that is placed in a strategic place in the city. If you need help you can go and stand in that square, because then passers by have to address this person and walk over.
Interesting…
So if I see you standing in the square I have to walk over and say, “Can I help you in some way?”
And this is real?
No, no.
You made this up.
Yeah.
That’s so interesting.
And if you don’t want to carry luggage you can put your luggage in the square, because in the square you’re not allowed to steal. So I think that I can actually build a culture around a symbolic place like this, just in the same way that we did in the church. But it’s going to have two levels of it. One of them is just practical. Okay, you can use it like a crossing place in the street. And the other level is philosophical. So what’s the rules outside the square? Are you allowed to steal there? If someone is need of help outside the square, shouldn’t we help them also there?
What if the person who needs help inside the square is someone who, outside the square, we would never help?
Yeah, exactly.
Like someone running from the cops?
Exactly.
That’s fascinating.
Also, where are our responsibilities set with the borders of a country? How should we…? Yeah, try to raise questions about society with this set-up.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
