If, by some random cataclysm (or Mondays as we now call them), you only got to see the first three scenes of the satire Triangle of Sadness you would still have rarely seen a more finely observed depiction of how money and status wreak havoc in our culture. The rest of this funny and occasionally surreal film by Ruben Ostlund is pure bonus.
The first three scenes are not the kind of situations that most of us find ourselves in. But they are immediately recognisable for their truth. The first is a casting call for male models. A snarky interviewer persuades our main character Carl (Harris Dickinson) and the other guys to flip from their H&M happy inclusive smiling look to their Balenciaga disdainful sneers. Smile, sneer, smile, sneer, smile, sneer. It’s flippant and funny, but makes the point that the models are more props than people, there only to serve the marketplace.
The second scene is in the front row at a catwalk show. The seats are full but some VIP has arrived. All the seated people have to stand and move one place to their left to make room. This means the person at the end of the row, Carl, gets bumped out of his seat altogether. Somehow the seating plan manages to convey a more dog-eat-dog viciousness than your average World War 2 aerial battle.
In his third scene, poor Carl is at dinner with his supermodel girlfriend and a silent ballet is performed over who is pretending they have not seen the check versus who is going to end up paying. It’s a struggle for power that manages to turn fine dining into Game of Thrones. Gender, looks and income are juggled as carefully as sharp knives.
The satire is clever. The script, also by Ruben Ostlund, is biting. It’s also not afraid to get down and dirty. Later in the movie, Carl is on a cruise with the super-rich. They spend the first few days bragging about how their wealth was made. Some sweet-looking old boomer couple turn out to be arms dealers, and a Russian oligarch has swum his way upstream ‘through shit’ to become one of the world’s biggest dealers in fertilizers. However, one evening the waves get too strong and the wealthy elite, after dining on oysters and champagne, become human fountains of projectile vomit. It’s revolting, hilarious and somehow strangely sacrilegious to see the cream of society reduced to swimming in their own excess fluids.
The film has a Lord of the Flies twist as the rich get stranded on an island and the lowliest crew members become the masters of the universe, simply because they know how to work, find food and make do. The previous beneficiaries of capitalism very quickly begin to espouse the philosophy of socialism ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’ now that the Prada mule is on the other foot. Revenge is sweet.
For a film that manages to quote Thatcher, Reagan, Karl Marx, Lenin and Mark Twain it smartly manages to avoid pretension. It is emotionally and culturally precise, even when employing slapstick. The absurd is used to convey truth. Its success is that it takes the messiest emotions that people have around wealth and status and rearranges them in an artful and illuminating way.
P.S. Andrew Hebden reviewed the movie at BFI London Film Festival it is currently screening in US movie theatres and from Oct 28th will be in UK cinemas too
Review by ANDREW HEBDENQueerguru Contributing Editor ANDREW HEBDEN is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing, and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement, he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre, and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.
Labels: 2022, Andrew Hebden, BFI London, review, Ruben Ostlund, satire, surreal, Triangle of Sadness
