This was recommended to me and I thought it might be a good idea to see it as my first visit to cinema in 2022. Recently I have been busy with work & moving to another address but now everything seems to have been settled and I can go back to my regular hobbies like movies and books. For this movie I purposely avoided any online information and just wanted to approach it as tabula rasa with no preconception of what critics think (it turned out the movie won Palme d'Or in Cannes).
"Triangle of Sadness" ended up being delightful black comedy and social satire. It actually consist of three different parts, like three chapters linked by the same protagonists: in the first part we meet two young privileged people (Carl and Yaya) who live in their own bubble, where modelling, fashion and online followers is all that matters. Clearly, it is completely unreal and unrelated to most of us who don't make our living from photo shoots and being influencers but for this couple this is reality and we see it as they constantly pose for the phone cameras, which takes a large part of their time. Whatever they do, when they are sunbathing or having a dinner, mobile phone camera is clicking all the time. It is not even clear do they love each other or do they simply think they look good together for Instagram. The second chapter finds them on a luxury yacht designed to cater for elderly, wealthy guests where staff and the crew is bowing to all their wishes and ridiculous whims. There is a clean-cut, caucasian crew that serves and works around the yacht and Asian staff that works downstairs - the way wealthy guests treat everybody is just appalling but perhaps even more unsettling is how servers allow themselves to be bossed around for the prospect of good tip. The third part of the movie finds them stranded on a desert island, where the roles are suddenly reversed and moneyed guests don't have any privilege anymore because its only one person who knows how to catch the fish and make fire - a housekeeper Abigail (excellent Filipina actress Dolly de Leon) who now imposes her own rules.
It was very original and unusual movie, so much that I left the cinema wondering out loud "why was this recommended to me?" but of course next day, when the impressions settled, I spoke excitedly about it and explained how interesting it was. Yes, it won Palme d'Or but this is never guaranteed commercial success and it might signal it will appeal to selected audience - be that as it may, obviously I am fan of arthouse movies and to me this was far more interesting social satire than 2019. Korean Oscar winner "Parasite" which irritated me - this one was closer to my sensibilities, I found it funny and fascinating (yes, some people are like this, posing and pouting for the phone cameras non stop), not to mention my experience of working on a cruise ships where guests are mostly entitled and unreasonable indeed. At the start of the movie the head of staff (Paula) drills her staff how to obey any of their guests wishes and they can never say "no" - this reminded me so much of my work experience with cruise guests who would often get out of their way just to bother and irritate staff with irrational demands. It was very funny and amusing, casting also helped because only Woody Harrelson is very well-known, everybody else was relatively unknown - this really helps in making the movie convincing. Unfortunately, the actress who played Yaya (Charlbi Dean) died soon afterwards from some freak bacterial infection so she never experienced its international success.
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