Flashback: The Guitar Mongoloid (2004) – Ruben Östlund’s eccentric feature debut
The first film by the Swedish director of Force Majeure and The Square fame is a panorama of lives on the fringes of Swedish society
Swedish director Ruben Östlund made his feature debut, The Guitar Mongoloid (Gitarrmongot), in 2004, before going on to greater success with Force Majeure (2014), which was nominated for best foreign-language film at the 2015 Golden Globes, and The Square (2017), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last year.
The Guitar Mongoloid doesn’t have a usual story arc. Instead, it presents characters interacting in scenes that have only the slightest connection to each other. Östlund’s aim is to present a panoramic view of the lives of those who are on the fringes of society in the fictional Swedish city of Jöteburg, which is analogous to the director’s home city of Göteberg, a place well known for its film festival.
Although it plays like a documentary – albeit a beautifully composed, well-lit and neatly performed one – it’s actually a feature film. Instead of referring to it as a mockumentary, Östlund calls The Guitar Mongoloid the world’s first pseudo-documentary, noting that the characters play themselves in front of the camera, even though they are acting.
The film features various people larking around in groups, chatting about nothing much, and engaging in urban adventures to relieve the boredom of their lives. The titular character is a young Down’s syndrome boy who busks punk rock on an acoustic guitar. Others include a group of young men who steal bicycles for fun, a sports team who give Nazi salutes as a joke, and three drunken types who talk about playing Russian roulette with a pistol that may or may not be loaded.
