When Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of sadness took home the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, the film and its director landed on the world map. Triangle of sadness has since become an international fan favorite since it had its world premiere at Cannes, despite remarkably being Östlund’s English-language feature film debut. Triangle of sadness begins with the story of Carl (Harris Dickinson), an English fashion model who is in a relationship with Yaya (Charlbi Dean in her last film role). Yaya is a fellow model, but is more successful than Carl: while he struggles to land gigs, she opens fashion shows.
The two have a tumultuous relationship at the beginning of the film, but when they are invited on a luxury yacht, things break into new territory. Carl, who is determined to make Yaya’s social media career flourish, essentially follows her around and takes pictures. When the boat’s drunken captain (Woody Harrelson) gives up on pandering to his wealthy clients, everything goes downhill when a group of pirates sink the ship, effectively switching the class dynamic established during the first two-thirds of the film . However, until then Triangle of sadness exposes some hard truths about the fashion industry and what it takes to be an influencer.
The fashion show scene introducing Yaya offers plenty of caustic commentary during that brief moment on the runway. There is a message about climate emergency and crisis, which has a deep, layered context. While the fictional show in the movie uses this as an aesthetic mainstay to design an entire show around, in real life the fashion industry is one of the biggest polluters on the planet. Not only are the working conditions for those working in factories in Bangladesh and Indonesia substandard, sometimes deadly dangerous, but the sheer amount of resources and toxins, chemicals and dyes that are simply dumped into freshwater wells is appalling. Triangle of sadnessfashion show taps into the irony of industry greenwashing and adds a subtle touch of humor for those looking deeper into the groceries.
In addition, models earn very little money through catwalks and commercial shoots. Not everyone is a supermodel with famous or wealthy parents, and Yaya and Carl’s situation becomes a lot clearer with this knowledge. Yaya may be known on social media and get a lot of free benefits for being an influencer, but she has no real money in her bank account. Hence the scenes where Carl furiously pays for everything – Yaya most likely has no money, only free clothes or goods donated to her. Carl, who doesn’t get as many bookings as she does, is probably stuck in a similar but different cycle, which is why he has a triangle of grief and the booking agents suggest taking Botox.
It’s competitive and elitist
One of the Triangle of sadnessopening scenes pretty well frame who Carl is in the system. He is shown in a room full of male models, of various heights, sizes and ethnicities, and all are topless. An interviewer and cameraman make their way through the masses of bodies, but he doesn’t care what these men think. At a critical moment, he asks them to create faces and poses based on H&M and Balenciaga, a mocking satire on how brands have certain aesthetics, but also how the work is an empty, objectifying representation. The subtext at this point is also important: when the camera’s gaze is on these models or the eyes of someone important, they are forced to perform. But in an industry like this, the tiniest of details can knock someone over.
Despite their status as models and Yaya having all the social media followers she has, the pair are immediately exposed when they enter the yacht’s compound. Carl, enraged by a topless male worker talking to Yaya as they sunbathe, reports him to the manager, effectively getting him fired. At this point, Carl betrayed one of his people, and there’s a direct parallel to the first scene here as the man is shirtless. Suddenly Carl is like the casting directors who sniffed at him in the opening scenes, scorning a blue-collar worker – which he did with his model – and looking down on him for status.
However, Carl and Yaya are just cogs in another machine. They’ve competed in the fashion industry, seeking glamor and wealth with resources that don’t produce those things, and they’re also useless when it comes to surviving on the island. During the fashion show scene, Carl’s status is pretty obvious when he gets kicked off the front row in front of some senior guys. Now reclined, all he can do is sit back and watch in awe as the show begins. Those in the front row, the industry’s wealthy elite, are on their phones all the time and seem disinterested when it comes to the actual show. It doesn’t get more real these days: the fashion industry, especially with the entry barrier for models, is known as all of this.