Triangle of Sadness [2022]

 Triangle of Sadness – the third instalment in Östlund’s ‘Anti-Capitalist Trilogy’, having been preceded by Force Majeure and The Square, and which won him a second consecutive Palm d’Or – was made with the incisive sharpness of a scalpel and the thudding blow of a sledgehammer. The resultant work, consequently, was filled in equal parts with cutting satire and unrestrained farce, in the Swedish provocateur’s outrageously unhinged assault on the shallow, vacuous, self-centred, hypocrisy-laden world of the über-wealthy. The film is structured into three disjointed episodes – the tantalizing first segment, made with barbed tonal precision, focused on a mutually corrosive battle of sexes, amidst the artifice of fashionistas and social media darlings; the superb second segment, set on an ultra-luxury yacht populated with grotesque affluence, traversed the highbrow farce of Buñuel and the lowbrow humour of Pasolini; the deadpan third segment, situated in a barren island, was a parodic variant, albeit with a class spin thrown in, to reality TV where celebs must “survive” for a grand prize. A model with a fragile male ego (Harris Dickinson) and a self-obsessed Insta influencer (Charlbi Dean) were the high-flying couple of the first chapter. The second chapter saw them aboard the exclusive cruise where they hobnob with dubious business magnates, smug aristocrats and repugnant weapons dealers; and featured a hilarious, alcohol-fuelled diatribe between the ship’s Marxist, world-weary American captain (Woody Harrelson) and a pompous Russian oligarch who worships Reagan and Thatcher (Zlatko Burić), and – arguably the film’s showpiece sequence – a truly cataclysmic dinner. Upon being stranded in the post-apocalyptic final chapter, the social order is spectacularly reversed as an Asian cleaning-woman (Dolly de Leon) lords over everyone as a stern but benevolent matriarch.

Director: Ruben Ostlund

Genre: Black Comedy/Social Satire

Language: English

Country: Sweden