Triangle of Sadness (2022)
Director: Ruben Östlund
Director: Ruben Östlund
It hints at how gender roles are reversed, with ladies earning more than men. Despite their demands for equal rights and equality, they conveniently use the 'damsel-in-distress' card and chivalry when it suits them. Sex is used as a bargaining chip.
We are told that beauty is on the inside, but seeing people making a fortune from their external appearances is illogical. The whole of show biz, the fashion industry and even influencers on social media are centred around aesthetics and exhibitionism to a certain degree. They do not bring anything 'value-added' to the table of human civilisational progress. Coincidentally, the movie's title refers to a medical term used by plastic surgeons to demarcate the area between the eyebrows that carry the 'worry wrinkle', which is treated with Botox.
The movie's second part showcases the opulence of the super-rich, their wasteful actions and their overindulgences in basic necessities of sustenance. Just being at the right place at the right time, their fortunes changed. With a little bit of quick thinking, they seized their opportunities and paved the path of the aristocracy for the next generation. In the film, a capitalist Russian hit a business 'landmine' when he packaged chicken droppings from his chicken farm into a mega fertiliser industry. Paradoxically, the cruise captain the characters travel on is a drunkard Communist American. Ironically, the American thinks capitalism is flawed, whilst the Russian says down with Communism.
We are shown how the crew on the Cruise, including the unseen and unheard workers in the engine room, cleaners and kitchen staff, literally break their backs to dance to the whims and fancies of every wealthy oligarch on board.
A side joke is about an elderly couple who made a fortune making grenades for third-world countries to bomb each other into pieces. Their characters were aptly named Winston and Clementine, with reference to the UK World War 2 Prime Minister and his beloved wife, of course. In a poetic justice style, they die when terrorists hurl a similar grenade at their ship.
In the final part of the movie, only a few people aboard survive the bomb blast and are marooned on a deserted island. Here, the role reverses. The pompous rich people have no survival skills. They have to live on the fishing and outdoor skills of a lowly Filipino housekeeping manager. Money is no more the equation here anymore. The Filipina tries to rule the roost with her knowledge of providing meals. The hierarchy is broken. Now, she tries to garner favour from her special status.
The ending is purposely left hanging. The real reason for this type of ending is precisely this. No system seems to be fair to all of mankind. An obviously top-down approach will create resentment. The people at the top will utilise whatever means available to them to stay there and to ensure similar lives for their offspring, no matter how dumb and uninitiated or lazy they are. True talent will be lost.
On the contrary, a genuinely equal system will not make the cut. There must be some kind of motivation for people to look forward to. Altruism, a good afterlife or some sort of existential reason will not sell. Pol Pot and Lenin tried and failed. The Money God will just do the trick. China, under Mao, preached true Communism and see what it brought them - famine, imprisonment and low morale. Once Deng Xaio Peng opened the country to capitalist practices, we saw China becoming a threat that even the poster child of capitalism, the USA, had to retaliate against.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
