Triangle Of Sadness (2022)
White Lotus Meets Lord Of The Flies, and No One Is Spared With Mercy
If you are bored to death with Superhero movies and sad-sack American bleeding-heart Oscar porn, Triangle of Sadness might be for you.
If you want to appreciate art that dismantles the elite, Triangle of Sadness is most definitely for you.
Ruben Östlund, a Swedish Writer and Director, has delivered two Palme d’Or-winning films, including Triangle of Sadness. I haven’t seen any of this man’s other films, but I surely will after what I just experienced last night at my theater.
I recommend this film to anyone capable of paying the $15 on Apple or Amazon Prime. I'll likely repurchase it when it’s released on 4K.
Come back after you watch it, or read on if spoilers are less critical than proper framing before viewing.
Triangle of Sadness is divided into three Chapters with an untitled Intro, and no character is safe in this film, which should thrill everyone in 2022.
INTRODUCTION
The Introduction is to Carl, a British male model who performs for a job interview, proving himself more of an actor than a static model. We move from ambivalence to lukewarm wind by the end of this Introduction. Carl isn’t a protagonist yet.
Here, the title is defined for the viewer. The Triangle of Sadness is where the forehead meets the eyebrows in a facial expression. Mystics refer to this spot as The Third Eye. It’s where modern woke people claim to live, but most have never experienced transcending anything, let alone their own weaknesses and anxiety.
PART 1: CARL & YAYA
Carl, the model, dines with Yaya, a model-turned-influencer. Their relationship is a business construct that includes sex, like some tech companies offer free snacks in their break rooms.
They argue over who’s paying for dinner. Yaya informs us all that she makes more money than Carl. The modeling session from the Intro confirmed that male models are the ones who hit a glass ceiling in this image industry.
Enraged, Yaya threatens to walk out of the restaurant, then agrees to pay, only to have her credit card declined. These are not wealthy people. These people, with little means and a smidge of influence, mistake plastic tokens for actual wealth.
Their money sleeps.
In the taxi on the way home from the restaurant to the hotel where they are staying (paid for by Yaya’s current assignment), Carl and Yaya delve further into the delicious exploration of gender roles and equality in their modern relationship.
In the elevator of the hotel, they break up.
Hours later, Yaya returns to her room, and they make up. Carl challenges her that he will inspire her to love him one day.
What a deluded couple.
There is a transition into the next chapter. A helicopter delivers what must be essential medicine or an emergency replacement part for a ship that turns out to be a $250M private luxury yacht for the insanely wealthy to polish with the soles of their shoes while their money makes money.
PART 2: The Yacht
It was neither medicine nor technology in that plastic case delivered by helicopter. It was jars of Nutella requested by Dimitry, the largest fertilizer seller in Eastern Europe, a bloviating sloth of a man who quotes Ronald Reagan like Jonathan Edwards recited the words of Jesus.
The massive crew of this yacht prepares for their day of servitude. An unannounced female voice informs us that the two most important events on a private cruise are the first hour and the last day. This is Paula, the Head of Guest Service. She leads a morning meeting with her staff that anyone who has experienced a corporate kickoff will nod along with as nonfiction.
She tells them she wants full service all the time. They are not allowed to use the word No with these guests. These are some of the wealthiest and most influential people in the world. It doesn’t matter if they want illegal substances. The answer will be yes. The Service Crew descends into a group clapping session, where they chant the word "Money" and high-five each other for their opportunity to serve that money.
You should feel thoroughly disgusted by the end of this scene, an emotion this film builds on to deliver what’s coming.
Carl and Yaya are on this vessel, invited as influencers; they are mostly given free things in exchange for amplifying products, people, companies, and political positions. They are beautiful human beings selling their beauty as advertising channels. Neither enslaved person nor enslaver, they serve opulence and desire, a dangerous Lord when brought together in the service of money that never sleeps.
The Chamber Maid, Abigail, wants to clean their room after what looks like a drunken night of indulgence and sheet-tangling sex. They yell at Abigail several times to get out and come back later.
Later, on the sun deck, Carl takes pictures of Yaya for her followers and is annoyed to see her admiring the body of a half-naked deck worker with sinewy muscles and an honest beard. Yaya acknowledges the man, and he greets her as if they lived on the same planet. Carl notes this and will later ask Paula to discipline the man. He’ll be fired and removed from the boat by dinghy.
Carl is thinking of asking Yaya to marry him. They sell wedding rings on this yacht. The one he picks out is nearly 30K Euros. Carl doesn’t have that kind of money. He has influencer-glass-ceiling male-model money, which means he doesn’t have to look at restaurant prices anymore. But he doesn’t have money for an engagement ring from a private yacht store.
Woody Harrelson plays the drunken ship’s Captain, who will reveal himself as a Marxist to the Capitalist pigshit salesman from East Russia. They will have a war of quotations in the scene between the vomitorium and the ship sinking.
Much of this film revolves around food. How it is acquired, prepared, and consumed. Food is one of the great universal experiences of all life. Life consumes energy to produce waste in a world of scarce resources with alternative uses. Our entire system of Law and Economics is built upon how these limited resources are distributed throughout our species. All these institutions have become wholly corrupted by never-ending avarice that would see all life on this planet die in flames before that greed yields to saturation.
This process has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with power — or, more accurately, the perception of power —which can change instantly, as we will see.
We meet the wealthy as they breakfast and find them primarily despicable. The Fertilizer King with his mistress or daughter (we never learn) and his spacey wife.
The proper elder British couple who made their fortune selling landmines and hand grenades that killed cities full of brown people.
The sad woman in a wheelchair who can barely communicate with her somehow more mute husband, caring for her needs without comment.
The lonely, sad Tech mogul who just sold his services company for a stupid amount of money but still has to bribe pretty women like Yaya to pose with him in exchange for a Rolex in the gift shop.
These are people for whom wealth has become like sugar to a diabetic. They die more from it with every meal.
In their suite, after a night of drunken cavorting on the top deck, the only tender moment between Carl and Yaya is shown to us as they pretend to be other people in sexual role-play.
The next day, the Fertilizer King’s wife upsets the order on the boat by demanding the crew stop preparing for the night’s feast, operating the ship, and servicing guests to swim and enjoy the new inflatable water slide.
The Head of Guest Service begs Darius, the Second Captain, to tell the guests no about the crew swimming. He refuses, so all work stops for play, initiated as a gift from the privileged to the underprivileged. But, unfortunately, it is viewed by the crew more as an annoyance than a blessing.
A sudden storm comes upon the vessel, and what ensues must be preserved for your enjoyment and terror. So if you’ve ever wanted to see wealthy, privileged people suffer, enjoy your feast because you Socialists are next.
Ultimately, it is not the storm that brings the vessel down but low-paid Pirates who toss one of the elderly British couple’s hand grenades at them, armed to blow. The wife marvels that it’s one of theirs before it kills them all.
Like the last Chapter, we are given a transition to the next with a sneak preview of a few survivors who have managed to float to land by luck and emergency raft. Everyone else dies.
Carl and Yaya survived. The Shit King lived. His wife floats up dead, and he takes off her rings and necklace to be used for barter in the coming descent. We never see him bury the body.
Paula, Head of Guest Service, survived to bring order to her living guests.
The Tech Mogul and the disabled woman both survived.
One of the pirates survived, though he claims he worked in the engine room.
PART 3: The Island
There is screaming in the night from some animals. They sound dangerous. No one’s money or influence shelters them here from the rain or creeping danger in the jungle. So they waste their remaining flares running from whatever’s screaming at them from out there.
The following day, Abigail, the maid, floats to shore inside an enclosed lifeboat containing emergency rations and water.
Paula takes command and distributes the water and crisps to the living guests. Finally, Abigail realizes what’s happening and commandeers the remaining supplies.
No one can fish but Abigail. No one can build a fire but Abigail. So she divides the Octopus meat in half, keeping half for herself and giving the rest to the survivors. When Paula demands that she hand out all portions equally, Abigail informs her that this is the new order of things, since she is the one who builds the fire and brings the food.
Abigail begins an ascent of the matriarchy that quickly culls these worthless men and women who can’t even feed themselves on an island surrounded by a sea full of fish and growing vegetation.
Ultimately, Abigail claims Carl as her sexual consort, and none of Yaya’s beauty or influence prevents this from happening.
The men do eventually find a way to contribute by brutally murdering a donkey on the island in what is one of the worst scenes of simulated animal cruelty I have ever witnessed in a theater. I never want to see or hear that scene again. Afterward, the men console each other in pity over the terror of torture that the animal just went through. If there is a reason to hate this film, it's this scene.
The film winds down as Carl and Abigail, shackled in the lifeboat, plot how to tell Yaya they are now the power couple on the island. They are running a corrupt system to distribute resources. Now, in this Triangle of Sadness, the person with the means to produce fuel for survival is responsible for distributing it to each according to need (as dictated by Abigail, former toilet maid, now Matriarch). Ah, the hollow and fleeting ideals of the socialist crashing against the rocks of human frailty and want.
Abigail accompanies Yaya on her trip to scout the rest of the island. As viewers, we are almost positive that Abigail will kill Yaya, her only possible competition for the man she has come to tolerate. However, we never see that murder.
Yaya discovers a service elevator, lounge chairs, and covered jet skis on another beach across the island. It’s a private resort, and they are safe. Finally, we see the dawning realization on Abigail’s face as she concludes that her days of Matriarchy are over, as dead as her days of cleaning toilets.
Abigail asks Yaya to hold back while she takes this in. She does decide to murder Yaya with a great big rock (like the one Piggy dies from in Lord of the Flies).
With distant EDM playing from somewhere far above these women, Abigail creeps up behind Yaya with the rock, and the madness of pending murder swells up her face.
Her back turned to the danger, Yaya offers to help Abigail —possibly for the first time those words have been said out loud to Abigail.
Yaya could hire her as a personal assistant to take care of her once things return to normal.
Abigail seems to consider this, and…we don’t know what happens next.
It’s a hard cut to Carl running through the jungle, either towards danger or safety or being chased by someone or something awful. He is undoubtedly under stress.
And that’s it. There are no spoilers because no one can tell you how this film ends. The viewer must speculate, painting themself into the movie as the active observer. Like Twin Peaks: The Return, WE are the linchpin in bringing meaning and closure to the film. It is only now, in the final scene of the film, that Carl becomes our protagonist.
So, what do you think happened?
