Cannes 2022: ‘Most disgusting movie of the year’ Triangle of Sadness is a frontal attack on the super-rich

Swedish director Ruben Ostlund arrived at the Cannes Film Festival with his controversial shocker, Triangle of Sadness. It’s nothing new for him. In 2017, his The Square was another uncomfortable watch which went on to clinch the top Palm d’Or. Ostlund’s latest is extremely provocative and a no-holds-barred social satire. Woody Harrelson is a rabid Marxist, who is the captain of a cruise ship that is ferrying the super rich and the snooty. (Also read: Nicole Kidman missing from Tom Cruise’s career highlight reel at Cannes) 

The BBC called it the most disgusting movie of 2022 .. .“a frontal assault on the super-rich, and on the capitalist system in general, which has enough rage and riotous abandon to compensate for its lack of subtlety”.

Ostlund described his film as “the end of Western civilisation.” It talks about a fashion model and her agent who wind up on a luxury yacht, and the passengers are stranded on a deserted island. Harrelson’s character gets completely drunk, reads a Communist manifesto and pilots his vessel into rough seas. The travellers fall terrible ill, vomiting and easing themselves. All these are graphically shown, which led to some in the audience walking out.

Yet, the movie got a long standing ovation, and when Ostlund and his team walked into the press conference the other day, they were greeted with a loud applause.

Speaking about his character, Harrelson said: “He is a Marxist. I’m not a Marxist, I’m an anarchist so in that sense we differ… “I’m guy who just thinks its abominable when a super power with all this military might with no provocation attacks, unprovoked, a country that is Ukraine.”

He added very firmly that he would be in Ostlund’s next work.“He’s going to play a captain on an airplane,” averred Östlund about the film. It is another social satire, like Triangle of Sadness, set on a long flight, inspired from Aldous Huxley’s dystopian novel Brave New World.

“Eight years ago, I met my wife; she’s a fashion photographer. I just wanted to know everything about the fashion industry. We started to talk a lot about fashion being a product, the condition of the models when they’re working; talking about beauty as a currency,” said Östlund.“I felt that beauty is attractive, but also scary”.

It is quite possible that Triangle of Sadness will walk away with a big prize on the night of the awards. The Square did with the Palm d’or, and was also in the running for the Oscars.