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(Triangle of Sadness • Showtimes Near London • Thu 13 Oct • Fri 14 Oct • Sat 15 Oct • Sun 16 Oct • Mon 17 Oct • Tue 18 Oct • Wed 19 Oct •
Curzon Wimbledon, 11,1 km·23 The Broadway - Merton, WIMBLEDON SW19 1RE, United Kingdom, 17:30
Curzon Richmond, 13,6 km·3 Water Lane, RICHMOND TW9 1TJ, United Kingdom, 17:30)
"Triangle Of Sadness"
In "Triangle Of Sadness" social hierarchy is turned upside down, revealing the tawdry relationship between power and beauty. Celebrity model couple, Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), are invited on a luxury cruise for the uber-rich, helmed by an unhinged boat captain (Woody Harrelson). What first appeared instagrammable ends catastrophically, leaving the survivors stranded on a desert island and fighting for survival.
"Triangle Of Sadness" addresses issues of gender roles and behavioral expectations, primarily with Carl and Yaya when they argue about who should pay for dinner at the start of the film. The film wants to look at these differences through the main characters. For example, a male model generally earns only a third of what a female model does. Numerous male models often have to maneuver past powerful homosexual men in the industry who want to sleep with them, sometimes with the promise of a more successful career. In some respects, being a male model mirrors what women have to deal with in a patriarchal society. A running joke for the female models is that when their modeling career is over, they always can marry rich men and become trophy wives, something that's not really possible for the male models.
The second part is set on a super yacht. The Captain is a an idealist, an alcoholic, and a Marxist. The captain should hostes the captain’s dinner, a seven-course meal, on the same evening as a storm approaches. The passengers get seasick and the captain becomes so drunk that he starts to read from the Communist Manifesto over the speaker system while the guests are puking. The captain has to be an idealist, an alcoholic and a Marxist for that to be possible. The scenes in which Dimitriy’s (Zlatko Boric) wife Abigail (Donna De Leon) and others vomit copiously during high seas is, we presume, a way of avenging them for their obscene wealth. It’s about the power you hold in a world where beauty is valuable. Initially Carl is a model who's losing his hair. The dynamic between Carl and Yaya is still stilted because she’s a beautiful, slightly older model who's on the rise while he’s on the way down. When they end up stranded on the island, he's able to use his beauty as economy.
The last part of the film to take place on a deserted island. On the island, when it turns out that the cleaning lady knows how to fish and make a fire, the old hierarchy is turned upside down. When Carl gets together with Abigail, it seems they've some kind of connection beyond the transactional. We see Carl as this young guy searching for meaning in a relationship that was otherwise meaningless. Even though he really likes Yaya, it gets to the point where Abigail is this beacon of strength and modernity. Carl isn’t happy with the traditional gender roles that define his relationship with Yaya and then he meets this powerful provider in Abigail and he finds that really attractive. The relationship between Carl and Abigail should be more nuanced than, ‘Oh, he’s sleeping with her to get extra pretzels’, if only because he wouldn’t humiliate his girlfriend for extra pretzels alone. And then, in a weak moment, Carl’s relationship with Abigail spiraled into something more meaningful.
There are many different tiers in the world of fashion, so it's more about trying to figure out where Carl had been positioned at the height of his success and where he's positioned at the start of the film. According to his back story, he uses to be a mechanic and he was scouted. It's about trying to ground the story in that context. We always imagine that Abigail and Yaya, having sensed that something is about to go very wrong. But there’s always a chance that Carl is being selfish and running away from everything.
Triangle of Sadness" is a term used in the beauty industry. 'Oh, you've a quite deep triangle of sadness, but I can fix that with Botox in 15 minutes'. It suggests you’ve had a lot of struggles in your life. It said something about our era’s obsession with looks and that inner wellbeing is, in some respects, secondary. Many scenes in "Triangle Of Sadness" have a connection to a sociological study or an anecdote that we think highlights something from a behaviouristic point of view. We use our clothes to try and hide in the social group to which we're connected. Our clothes are our camouflage. Just think about the concerns we've when we're going to a fancy evening party; we really don’t want to be over- or underdressed. If we get it wrong we feel exposed. From an economical perspective it really makes sense that fashion brands create new collections all the time. Then we've to change our clothes more often and consume more. The way we look affects every social encounter. The fact that looks play such a key role in society is something of a universal inequality, but on the other hand you can be born beautiful wherever you come from and that beauty can be used to climb the socioeconomic ladder in a class-based society.
Rich people are nice. Successful people are often very socially skilled, otherwise they wouldn’t be so successful. There’s an ongoing myth that successful and rich people are horrible, but it’s reductive. It’s probably a more accurate description of what the world looks like. Can Films, and, in fact, culture in general change our society? There's an influence of gangster rap on our behavior. To answer yes to that question is not the same as being pro-censorship. We believe in freedom of speech, but we should also be aware of the consequences that this cultural expression might create.
Written by Gregory Mann
