Oscar-nominee and Palme d'Or winner The Square to release in India on 16 March

The Swedish award-winning drama The Square will release in India on 16 March, trade analyst Taran Adarsh confirmed on Twitter. A sumptuous Stockholm museum filled with grotesquely pretentious conceptual art is at the centre of Ruben Östlund’s satirical drama, which switches between surrealism, comedy of manners, thriller and social commentary. Written and directed by Ostlund, The Square stars Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West and Terry Notary. [caption id=“attachment_4381671” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] This image released by Magnolia Pictures shows Terry Notary, centre, in a scene from The Square. AP[/caption] The film’s highlight is a dinner for the museum’s well-to-do patrons where a performance artist leaps from table to table impersonating an ape — a bizarre, tense and ultimately violent scene. Critics hailed the movie as “ high-wire cinema” and noted , “it’s less in the story and more in characters, the milieu and the anticipation of how far Ostlund is willing to push the boundaries of his own art.” Although, some said it could easily have shed part of its 2 hours and 22 minutes running time. The Square won the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, who headed the jury, said the film was about “the dictatorship of being politically correct”. “Such a serious subject is treated with an incredible imagination. It is very, very, very funny,” he said. The film was also nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 90th Oscars, where it lost to Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman. With inputs from agencies