VIFF 2022: Triangle of Sadness has merciless fun with model cattle calls and luxury cruise liners
What happens is flamboyantly disgusting and extremely funny, with Woody Harrelson in his element
Triangle of Sadness
Triangle of Sadness screens at the Centre for the Performing Arts on October 9 as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival
AN ALTERNATE TITLE might be Circle of Abuse.
There’s no mercy in Ruben Östlund’s Hobbesian view of humanity, just hierarchies of self-interest inside a perpetual scramble for advantage. Östlund’s films generally take a pitiless God’s eye view of craven people and the absurd political and social structures we adhere to, with the caveat that it’s a cruel god with a mean sense of humour.
In its fabulous opening scene, Triangle of Sadness introduces us to nominal lead Carl (Harris Dickinson) during a cattle call for high-end male models, immediately making the point that his female counterparts in the flesh industry—like Carl’s amoral influencer girlfriend Yaya (Charlbi Dean)—make a lot more money. So there’s your first indication that Östlund’s movie is a frontal attack on all of our precious isms, exaggerated into the stratosphere during the film’s second act, when a luxury liner filled with grotesque caricatures of the super-wealthy meets a terrible fate. What happens is flamboyantly disgusting and extremely funny, punctuated by a drunken treatise delivered over the stricken ship’s PA by its Marxist captain, played by Woody Harrelson in his absolute element.
The film’s final hour takes a big hammer to one of liberalism’s most sacred fantasies, leaving us with the sense that Triangle of Sadness belongs to a tradition (the Palme d’or would agree) in which we find scandalous old anarchists like Marco Ferreri. In that spirit: let the walkouts begin!
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