Ruben Ostlund's Involuntary consists of five unique stories, each intimately capturing human behavior in a group dynamic. A bus driver discovers someone on his bus damaged his washroom, coming to the decision that until someone confesses, the buss goes nowhere. A grou of male friends prank one of their friends Ollie, but the aftermath paints a picture more representative to rape than any type of prank. Two teenage girls pose for semi-erotic pictures, dance in a very sexualized manner, but are more a facade than actually promiscuous. An old man is injured at his party, opting to conceal his pain rather than ruin the night for everone. Lastly, a school teacher discovers a fellow faculty member being overly abusive with a student. Each of these stories consist of very different circumstances but they all display the power of collective thinking and/or social influences. Ostlund's Involuntary is humorous and poignant, offering a unique viewpoint in individual vs. group dynamics and how that influences and or manipulates what we tend to consider good judgement. Shott in a very unique way, Ostlund's film can only be described as observational, almost always using a single-frame to capture the action in each sequence. This choice detaches the audience from the film, often even keeping the character's faces off screen, in an attempt to aid the audience in diagnosing each of these situations from a completely unbiased perspective. Ruben Ostlund's Involuntary is a film that forces the viewr to pay attention to detail, quietly exposing the faults that exist in human behavior, specifically as it pertains to the individual vs. collective dynamic.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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