PicoBlog

Something I’ve noticed in storytelling is that someone, say a writer or a director, clearly had a brainwave, an astute reflection that needed to be brought to life. They mistakenly believe think pieces and well-crafted tales are synonymous and that creating something with a noble mission statement is a substitute for a good narrative.

Ruben Östlund, the writer and director of the ‘Triangle of Sadness’, didn’t get this memo when making his anti-capitalist flick. If you haven’t seen it, it follows a couple, models Yaya and Carl, who seem only to be together because they are both beautiful and due to being hot and blessed, they snag a free trip on a luxury yacht ending in disaster.

My attempt at a spoiler-free description might be redundant as I might be the last person on earth to see it. I tried to be on the ball. I tried to stay up with the zeitgeist. It should be easy because I live a bus ride away from not one, not two, but THREE Picturehouses. Still, I missed its theatrical run. It wasn’t my fault. According to my scramblings through the listings, I couldn’t make any of them because *checks notes* I work on weekdays at 4 pm.  British cinema, sort your shit out! People who are active members of society want to watch movies that aren’t ‘The Guardians of the Galaxy. Vol 3’. I shit you not, ‘Sick of Myself’ must have had about three showings in its brief London run. You’re missing your target audience…

That secondary rant over, back to my primary grievance, which is that the 2022 Palm D’Or winner has a good conceit, but the execution doesn’t quite match. Its ‘Aren’t rich people the worst’ schtick, with its excellent cast of Harris Dickinson, the late Charlbi Dean, Woody Harrelson and Dolly De Leon, thinks it’s enough to rest on this gag alone. Despite believing it with every fibre of my being, a movie this does not make!

For starters, this is not new information. I already know this! I already know that service staff must defy the laws of physics to appease their wealthy clientele. I already know influencers don’t have as good a time as their Instagrams are alleging on their free holiday. You just have to be alive in 2023.

This approach is a route to cinematic flop because movies do not need a fresh take on capitalism. One of the best, from my main man Karl Marx, came out in 1848. If anything, some of my favourites bask in its most disgusting elements. If this leaves filmmakers feeling a bit sick, like you ate a sabotaged fining dining seafood supper on a motorised yacht, I suggest tweaking your plot a bit more. When you’ve done that, then add the bells and whistles.  

The film has funny moments, like the aforementioned fish dinner, and they made me chuckle. It’s a cheap laugh to paint a German billionaire offering to buy the hot women at the bar a Rolex as an idiot. Obviously, he’s a baffoon! He thinks they are the best Swiss watch when really anyone of that tax bracket ought to know they tell terrible time! Get a Breitling or a Piguet or a Cartier!

In fairness, the art form does not lend itself to original thought. Motion pictures are not political manifestos, which the left probably has more than enough of. Like all art forms, they have a scope to challenge, but even Cannes critical darlings are limited. It might just not be for me, and that is fine. I’m not trying to brag about my advanced leftism (which, if I ever do, please come and shoot me), but I think this film is doing precisely that while simultaneously offering nothing worth the ego. 

Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad it exists.  Maybe, Harrelson’s Marxist yacht captain character might have snatched someone. His genuinely amusing exchange of ideas with the Russian probably just served as a confirmation bias for each side of the debate. 

‘Triangle of Sadness’ being lacklustre is unfortunate because lampooning capitalism, wealth hoarding and materialism is so up my street! Nevertheless, I refuse to give a two-thumbs-up rave review to a film that left me asking my cat, ‘Do you think it's nearly finished?’ A tad of fine-tuning might have made me adore this film. Seriously, it did not need to be TWO AND HALF HOURS! Is it a power play, this Hollywood habit of making movies longer than they should be? Do they want me to suffer? They do, don’t they? 

Get me in any and all post-production edit suites because someone needs to be the voice of the short attention span. We matter. 

When I correctly deploy this critique, my friend Fabian tells me, ‘Clara, you always say all films are too long!’ Yes, because they are! It’s an epidemic! I will not stop saying it because I'm right whenever I say it.

See, not all films are too long. Some are three hours and need to be, like the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ and ‘Goodfellas’! They might happen to be identical movies, plotwise, but they have earnt their length! Martin Scorsese is much better at highlighting the horrors of capitalism without being so pleased with himself, which is me hitting the nail on the head. You can’t be both. Being smug and long is too much. You can be up your own arse, but only if you make it snappy! Frankly, if it’s not fast-paced, vomit-soaked polemics on socioeconomic relations are irksomely tedious.

I have high standards for things that convincingly suggest that workers who contort themselves into whatever humiliating positions are required of them to etch out a living are the ones to call on in a crisis, who possess the ability to do actual real things. I want films that argue those with status and power tend to be unequipped to survive to be captivating. 

You can’t radicalise people by being dull.

Post script

This message is for Deirdre Hill and Deirdre Hill alone; you won’t like this film. Don’t bother!!!!!!! (not for the reasons above but that there are bits that are really disgusting, and you can just get the rant from me over the phone, as always)

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