And the ship vomits – Weekend – Kommersant
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The Triangle of Sorrows was released in Russia, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year. Ruben Östlund’s farce turns Marx into an anecdote, hilariously talking about shit, big money, top models, and the symbolic death of capitalism. Here everyone is sick, and whoever is not sick is that Russian oligarch.
A couple of models, Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Sharlby Dean Creek), are about to split up or get married. Yaya earns more, Carl goes to auditions, but his “triangle of sadness” is too tense, where wrinkles form between the eyebrows. Karl and Yaya fight over money, but when they find themselves on a yacht cruise among very rich people, they do not feel any embarrassment. Crew members are bound to cater to the guests’ every whim, and the guests – a Swedish IT mogul, a Russian capitalist who sells crap, elderly British arms dealers – enjoy life. During the captain’s dinner, a terrible storm begins – and oysters, caviar and champagne mix with vomit, shit and quotes from Marx.
There’s a lot more going on in Swedish Ruben Östlund’s The Triangle of Sorrows, and in retelling the film seems like a satire too raw, too primitive, too anecdotal. Is it possible to seriously make a movie about how the richest people relax on a cruise on the former yacht of Onassis, and their captain is a drunken Marxist? Isn’t it vulgar to send a couple of millionaires, a couple of different-sex models, a semi-paralyzed German, a blonde manager, a pirate and a toilet cleaner to a desert island and look at group dynamics? Is it funny to show how a male model frowns when advertising a more expensive brand (“the more expensive the brand, the more obvious your contempt for the buyer should be”), and professionally shines, drawing the attention of the public to a cheaper brand? Or how a model smiles at pasta for a pretty social media pic, then pushes her plate away, “I don’t eat gluten”? Of course, after half an hour of screen time, her attitude towards gluten will change. Of course, all this – rivers of shit in the corridors, general hypocrisy, the slogan on the podium “Cynicism under the guise of optimism”, hand grenades, Rolex for a selfie – will turn out to be both funny, and ridiculous, and justified. Because before us is Marxism for dummies, the decline of capitalism by the forces of ordinary alcoholics, commodity-money relations in terms of goods.
Ruben Östlund, now a two-time Cannes Palme d’Or winner (for “Square” and now for The Triangle of Sorrow), makes films about how people use each other, things, art, their own position – and about the hierarchies that are built and destroyed in the process. The museum curator in the film “The Square” asked the journalist if her bag would become a work of art if put in a museum. The Triangle of Sorrow explores the same question: Will a cleaner become a captain if she is stranded on a desert island? What will a millionaire become if he loses his millions? What will a top model become if she loses her phone? Will a hand grenade blow up those who sold it? Being and consciousness, signified and signifying—but Estlund does not philosophize, he amuses himself, and this is the main merit, if not of the film, then of the director.
He offers stereotypical moves, but reverses the standard relationships between people, and between classes, and between the sexes. Estlund, in his own words, wants to show that everyone, in essence, can be good people, even millionaires, even pirates, even models. Here is a guy and a girl quarreling over a restaurant bill: but we agreed yesterday that you pay! – the guy is hysterical. Here Yaya, with a sweet smile, explains to Carl that she is a skilled manipulator (for a viewer who remembers this phrase, the movie will end up being fundamentally different). Here is a Russian capitalist who made himself billions on shit (Zlatko Buric), turns out to be a darling, and even his announcement over the speakerphone that the ship is sinking is just a joke. Here Lenin is quoted by the delightful drunken Woody Harrelson with the October badge on the captain’s tunic. Here is a British old woman and her chubby husband complaining that “the new UN restrictions have ruined everything” and deprived them of a quarter of the profits from sales of land mines. “We had a hard time, but together we managed … let’s drink to love!” Here the waitress explains to the vomiting public: “To not feel sick, you need to eat something.”
And they chew. The Triangle of Sorrow is a film about modern society, which means consumption, devouring, eating, hunger, thirst, big grub, those who eat, those who serve food, those who pay for it. The three-part structure of the film can be read in any way. Hegelian triad – thesis (people who sell themselves), antithesis (people who buy), synthesis. Three sources and three components of Marxism (the first part deals with materialism, the second analyzes the surplus value under capitalism, the third talks about building a socialist society). In the first part, Karl is a shell, a thing that advertises another thing, a consumable, something like a condom. Product. Then he is a man from the rich world, and at his word anyone can be fired or punished. Money. Then he is a shell, a thing that gives pleasure, like a dildo. Goods again. Nobody cares about his own feelings, not even the director, not even Karl Marx. Sadness.
This merchandise story, the anecdote of “a Russian capitalist and an American communist on a $250 million yacht,” could be read as anti-Battleship Potemkin, farcical “Film-Socialism,” a new “Angel Killer.” But Östlund is fun and brazenly pays no attention to godards, bunuels, “Titanics” and “Lords of the Flies”, refusing any allusions.
“Triangle of Sorrow” can be combined with the director’s previous films – “Force Majeure” and “The Square” into a trilogy, for example, about male behavior, or about money, or about bourgeois values, but the point is that Östlund always makes films about interactions. Whether it’s the exploration of the family in Force Majeure, the exploration of bullying and submission in The Game, or all the unrelated petty dramas in Voluntary Force, all of his films are about group dynamics. Sometimes on the example of small groups. Sometimes on the example of civilization. Sometimes you want to turn away. Sometimes it’s too late to turn around.
Available from December 1st
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