A version of this “Triangle of Sadness” story first appeared in the Guild & Critics Awards/Documentaries issue of awards magazine TheWrap.
(This article contains spoilers for Triangle of Sadness..”)
For director Ruben Östlund, an integral part of the filmmaker’s job is to see his film with the audience and then answer questions from the crowd. This ethos has been especially true and fruitful when it comes to Östlund’s latest “Triangle of Sadness,” which opened in theaters in October and is now available to rent on streaming services.
“Triangle of Sadness” earned Östlund his second Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last spring, a very rare honor for such a wild and raucous comedy. While introducing the film at a screening in New York, the Swedish director reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone. “We didn’t make the movie for this small individual screen,” he told the audience, pointing to his device. He jerked his thumb at the gigantic movie screen behind his shoulder: “This is what we did it for.”
Like other purists of the theatrical experience like Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve and Steven Spielberg, Östlund sees irreplaceable value in a large crowd gathered to watch a movie together. Unlike the other three, his preferred genre is comedy. And while he’s built a fan base with his ski-slope farce “Force Majeure” and his art-world satire “The Square,” the new film is his craziest and wildest roller-coaster ride yet.
Focusing on the experience of two fashion models Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean) aboard a doomed luxury yacht captained by a drunken Marxist (Woody Harrelson), the film follows their characters along a path very unpredictable, which includes 18 visceral and hysterical. -Meticulous representation of seasickness on the boat, with cascades of vomit and sewage from the bathroom.
But the final third of the film is set on a deserted island, where some survivors of a pirate attack aboard the yacht have been forced to live and survive. Among them are the two models and a middle-aged maid named Abigail (Dolly De Leon, in a revealing performance) whose job on the yacht was cleaning toilets. On the island, she is the only member of the group who knows how to fish or light a fire. Therefore, she is the captain now.
“The character of Abigail was very important to me,” Östlund explained to TheWrap. “We live in a world where people abuse power, but those who are being abused, they, we, also inherit that behavior. Abuse of power will create abuse of power. Of course, Abigail has learned this dynamic from being in the world before. So when they get to the island and their currency is more valuable, she wants to take advantage of that. She knew that she wanted her to own the game.”
In a bizarre gender role reversal, Abigail takes on the handsome young Carl as her personal concubine. And in the final scene of the movie, Abigail and Yaya decide to take a hike together to the other side of the island. When they overcome a steep mountain range, the two women discover an elevator that goes up to a luxury hotel.
In developing the narrative and figuring out how he wanted to end the story, Östlund was inspired by an 1882 work by Henrik Ibsen called “An Enemy of the People.”
“There is a great theater director in Germany called Thomas Ostermeier and I went to see his version of this Ibsen play,” Östlund said. “He ended that work with a strong human dilemma. Essentially, a journalist has to decide if he will reveal the truth about poisoned water in a town, and if he does, his mother-in-law’s spa will go out of business. And the play ends with the characters looking at papers but we don’t know what’s on them. I thought it was cool to end the play on a strong dilemma where you can really think, “Okay, how would I handle this?”
At the end of “Triangle of Sadness,” Abigail and Yaya stop for a moment after finding the elevator door. Abigail, however, picks up a large rock, picks it up in her arms, and walks up behind Granny, clearly intending to knock her out with a blow to the back of her neck.
“In that scene, Abigal and Yaya see her rescue and really genuinely hug each other and sit together,” Östlund said. “Because they like each other too. And Abigail goes and picks up this stone and walks over to the back of a human being and she has this stone in your hand. And she or she will either drop the stone to the ground and lose her position on the island, or she will hit Yaya on the head and maybe keep her position.”
He added: “It was very important to me to create the situation where the audience could identify with Abigail doing it. And with the possibility of violence. I’ve been asking the audience when we have Q&A after the screenings now, ‘How many of you think Abigail kills Yaya?’ Many think she does.”
We asked Östlund what he thinks. He smiles. People ask me what happens in the last scene”, says Ruben Östlund, “but I haven’t decided. I really do not know. In fact, I’m not that interested in the answer in my own mind. It’s the possibility of her doing it, and how we can all relate to that, that’s what interests me.”
De Leon, however, has an opinion, which he shared in Cannes. “Of course Abigail kills (Yaya), of course,” he said in May.
But “Triangle of Sadness” doesn’t quite end with the dilemma of whether Abigail kills Yaya. Östlund also includes a short shot of Carl running at breakneck speed through the jungle, trying to catch up with the two women, while the fantastic dance hit “We’ve Lost Dancing” plays on the soundtrack.
Östlund said: “For that take, I said to Harris (Dickinson), ‘You’ve been at the beach camp with the other one and the beach vendor got there. And maybe the beach vendor told you that on the other side of the island, in the direction Granny and Abigail went, there’s a resort hotel there. And Carl realizes that for Granny and Abigail, the whole situation may be dangerous. He really feels like something bad could happen, that’s why he’s running around like this, bloody and frantic.”
However, the director is also open to alternate theories for that shot. “An audience member told me, ‘No, Carl is trying really hard to get his masculine identity back from him. He is struggling with gender expectations and the last shot is a metaphor for his lost masculine identity, which has been completely lost.” And I love that performance, too.”
Östlund, who smiles and laughs frequently during our interview, turns somber when discussing one of the stars of his film, South African model-turned-actress Dean, who died in August of a sudden illness at the age of 32. it was a shock and it is a tragedy,” he said. “Mostly to her family and her fiancé and her brother and her best friends. But also because Charlbi was really such a loving person. At the screenings I’ve been to, we always dedicate the film to him. We can only imagine where she would have gone with her talent and her career.”
As for the future of the filmmaker, he has already outlined the story of his next film, which could turn out to be even more comical and turbulent than “Triangle of Sadness.” He is more than eager to share details; in fact, during the promotional campaign for “The Square” in 2017, he peppered reporters with details of his script in the works for “Triangle of Sadness,” including the aforementioned ending.
His next film, which he is still writing, is set inside a passenger plane during a long flight, and is titled “The Entertainment System is Down”, a hilarious title that is self-explanatory. “On the plane, people whose TV screens don’t work are offered a cheese sandwich and mineral water as compensation,” he said. “That’s when the real trouble for the crew starts.”
We didn’t ask Östlund to spoil the ending, though the mischievous director smiled brightly as he said, “It’s a disaster movie.”
Read more from the Guild & Critics/Documentary Awards edition here.
