‘Triangle of Sadness‘ by the Swedish director Ruben Östlund is the film that charmed the Cannes Festival jury this year. It was a choice applauded by many critics and fiercely criticized by a few others. The audience was also divided in about the same proportion, if we are to judge by the comments on IMDB. Most of the comments were positive, and if there was any reason of amazement for me it was that a film with a good chance of success with the public managed to win the most important prize at this fancy festival. At the same time, it is a complex (and long!) film that not only describes the social conflicts of the contemporary world but also does not hesitate to take a clear and explicit position. It’s what probably irritated a minority of critics and viewers. Complexity without ambiguity. If we are to look for a lineage of the cinematographic approach, the most obvious term of comparison seems to me to be Pasolini’s films. As in the case of the Italian master, the characters belong to well-defined social classes, and this belonging plays an essential role in who the heroes are, but also in the way the director approaches them. The messages are not implicit but explicit, what the author wants to say is not insinuated but shouted loud.
Three stories suceed each other in this film. The lead characters shared by the three episodes are Carl – a fashion model who is not very successful – and his friend Yaya who is an ‘influencer’ – whatever that means – and earns more money than him. The first episode is set in present-day Sweden and shows the couple engaged in endless and rather boring querels and arguments, probably typical of today’s pampered and bored youth. In the second episode, the couple is invited, probably due the publicity made by the ‘influencer’, on a cruise on a luxury yacht, in the company of super-rich people who became so from the most dubious sources (an arms dealer, a famous software engineer who can’t really explain what the code that he wrote and made him rich does, a merchant of shit – literally). Social classes, absent in the first episode, are well defined here. They live on different floors and those below are invisible to those above. Order reigns and conflicts are quelled. A storm and the captain’s drunkenness endanger the balance of the ship and of the entire world in this film. A traumatic event separates the second episode from the third in which some of the characters will find themselves on an island. Social conventions are turned upside down. The richest and strongest becomes the one who can light the fire and procure the food.
We find in this film many of our contemporary obsessions: the rigidity of social hierarchies; assets acquired through dubious means; the relationships between money, power, sex; the lack of communication between social classes but also in couples. All are rendered with the tools of comedy and social satire. Products of popular television are quoted: the second episode begins as a variant of the series ‘Love Boat’, and the third as an episode of the series ‘Lost’. The cast, like the production, is truly international and provides oportunities to some outstanding creations. First of all I have to mention Woody Harrelson who, in the role of the ship captain, creates a memorable role. The scene of the duel between the American ship captain with socialist ideas and the free-marketeer Russian capitalist (Croatian actor Zlatko Buric) who – in the midst of a storm at sea – fight each other in quotes from sources like Mark Twain, Lenin, Thatcher and Chomsky while increasing the amount of alcohol in their bloods is of anthology. I hope a supporting Oscar nomination doesn’t elude Harrelson. Filipina actress Dolly De Leon excels in the role of the woman who emerges from the basements of the yacht where she had been an invisible servant until then to dominate the foreground of what happens next. English actor Harris Dickinson and South African Charlbi Dean are excellent in the roles of the young couple. I would have liked the script to be a little more generous with the evolution of their relationship, which starts very promisingly in the first episode, but is overwhelmed by the other themes in the following ones. Unfortunately, for the young and beautiful South African actress this was the last role, she died this summer.
I really liked ‘Triangle of Sadness‘. I am aware of a few minor shortcomings, but I think that they are fully compensated by the energy of the satire and the talent for building characters and stories of film director Ruben Östlund. I didn’t feel or mind the duration. In my opinion it is one of the best movies of 2022.