On Thursday, December 1, the dramedy Triangle of Sorrow, filmed with the cooperation of filmmakers from Europe, Turkey, Mexico and the United States, will be released in Russian cinemas.
The director and screenwriter of the project was a frequent guest of the Cannes Film Festival Swede Ruben Östlund.
His filmography includes the festival hits "Square" and "Force Majeure", in which the director explores the behavior of people who find themselves in unusual stressful situations.
Östlund's new work was also presented at Cannes and won the Palme d'Or.
This time, a couple of models in love is in the center of the plot, and from the first episodes of the picture, reflections on various kinds of inequality sound from the screen.
First, the authors of the “Triangle of Sorrow” give viewers the opportunity to plunge into the behind the scenes of the modeling business, where men, with similar competition and strict selection, earn three times less than women, but sometimes they receive some advantages due to connections with influential representatives of the industry (by the way, the director’s wife is fashion- photographer, so this side of life is shown in the film at least partially authentically).
The plot then focuses on the relationship of two young lovers working in this business.
At the same time, if the girl, Yaya, enjoys success in her career, then her boyfriend Karl is going through a crisis.
The subject of their serious conflict becomes an everyday and completely banal question: who will pay the bill in the restaurant.
Yaya does not intend to do this - she is guided by her ideas about her own gender role and believes that a man should pay.
Karl, living in a society where equality is shouted from all sides, believes that it would be fair for a girl, especially a very wealthy one, to spend money on dinner sometimes.
As a result, the quarrel reaches the point of absurdity, but reflections on the position of gender in modern society end there.
This conflict only sets the general mood of the picture, and then gives way to more global issues.
All of them, in one way or another, revolve around different types of inequality, or rather, those facets due to which among all the “equal” members of society there are those who are “more equal than others”.
© Shot from the film "Triangle of Sorrow"
Carl and Yaya remain the central characters of the story, but other equally characteristic and interesting characters join them.
According to the plot, several rich and influential passengers meet on a cruise on a luxury yacht.
Among them are a Russian businessman selling fertilizers with his wife, a brilliant IT specialist, charming elderly arms dealers from the UK, a couple of models already familiar to viewers, and others.
There are discussions about equality.
Some of the rich people directly declare that all people are equal, but then, for the sake of fun, he gives the order to the staff, who have a “don’t say no” attitude.
As a result, all work on the ship immediately stops.
There are many similar scenes in the film - the same Karl, who actively advocates equality, achieves the dismissal of an employee with one phrase.
However, at some point, the entire hierarchy disappears without a trace - first due to seasickness that began in most of those present on the yacht during a storm, and then due to a shipwreck, as a result of which only a few remain alive on the island.
There, everything is completely turned upside down, and the cleaning lady, who was responsible for the toilets on the yacht, becomes the “captain”: it turns out that out of the whole motley company, she alone can light a fire and catch fish.
Naturally, she gladly (and quite rightly) uses her power, while the rest, the rich and influential people in the big world, try to get at least some advantages in ways familiar to them.
Someone persuades the "boss", scattering Marxist quotes, which in the context looks extremely funny, and someone enjoys friendly relations or even a romantic connection,
Most of the characters in the new conditions demonstrate their worst sides, but not everything is revealed in this vein, which makes the story more realistic and at the same time raises additional questions.
The author of the picture treated women quite favorably - their behavior also changes, but they turn out to be more reasonable and cunning, quickly accept the new rules of the game and then solve problems in a completely civilized manner.
© Shot from the film "Triangle of Sorrow"
The difference between how people usually behave and what happens to them in an emergency is obvious, and it is emphasized by the demonstration of how our contemporaries create a false image of themselves and their lives on social networks: it is quite difficult to believe that a happy the couple in the photos and Carl and Yaya on the yacht and the island are the same people.
Others demonstrate the importance of the external image a little less clearly, but it’s hard not to notice such contrasts: for example, when a spouse, ready to satisfy even the wife’s most expensive requests in public, very busily removes jewelry from her body.
By the way, the “triangle of sadness” is a term meaning wrinkles between the eyebrows.
By choosing such a title for his film, Ruben Östlund emphasizes the value of appearance instead of inner well-being in the modern world.
The film captivates with its high-quality, thoughtful production, impressive locations and excellent acting - even the performers of secondary and episodic roles instantly attract attention and are remembered for a long time.
As a result, the impression is slightly spoiled by the excessive chewing of the ideas raised in the picture.
The same thoughts are repeated several times in different forms - from quite restrained hints to a very rude demonstration of their essence and even speaking it out loud, and all contrasts designed to convey this or that idea are elevated to the absolute.
On the one hand, such decisions make it possible to convey as clearly as possible everything that the author was trying to say, and on the other hand, I would like Estlund to leave the audience at least a little room for imagination.
Space would not hurt even in the brightest and at the same time terrifying episode of the film - when a storm rages outside the yacht, and inside everything becomes very bad.
These scenes evoke admiration for the very precise staging and selfless acting of the actors - Sunny Melles is especially inimitable, practically spewing various liquids into the camera.
But it all looks so realistic and goes on for so long that impressionable viewers may feel sick or just want to leave the hall.
The scene is reminiscent of splatters (horror films that are characterized by an emphasis on a naturalistic demonstration of blood and mutilation), but, fortunately, the tape does not roll into a horror film, including because the heroes quote Marxist quotes against the backdrop of a nightmare happening on the screen.
This allows, in spite of everything, to maintain the seriousness of the picture,
Be that as it may, the controversial decisions of the "Triangle of Sorrow" cannot be called unambiguous shortcomings of the picture.
The film is primarily a high-quality festival project, and such works are usually not filmed for the widest audience.
But this tape is able to attract fans of the mainstream precisely because of the curious plot and the author's approach to revealing his ideas.