"Triangle of Sadness": Applaud for diversity or should we look deeper?
The Palm d'Or recognized film on power-struggle and eating-the-rich features Filipinos - but is this an ode to diversity or something else?
After I found out that Dolly de Leon could have been the first Filipina to win a Golden Globe for Supporting Actress on her role in Triangle of Sadness, I had to jump on and watch it. Ruben Östlund, a writer and director who also created the Palm d’Or winning The Square, made an “eat-the-rich” film that has a similar essence to Parasite, where hierarchies switch roles and power-struggles build up tensions. Dolly de Leon, who plays the toilet manager Abigail, becomes the centerpiece in Part 3 when she establishes herself as “the captain”.
The basic premise of the film is about a group of wealthy elites in an exclusive yacht. Amongst the elite include an entrepreneur who “sells shit” (fertilizer for landscaping), a tech founder who sold his company, and a couple who are models on an influencer job. The film starts with the buildup in Part 1, introducing us to the model couple on a dinner date and opening up a conversation on expected gender-roles and stereotypes when Carl (played by Harris Dickinson) called out Yaya (who was played by Charlbi Dean) on not paying for dinner.
Throughout this first part, there are themes of satire that poke fun of the “performative wokeness” of the fashion industry with scenes such as the opening of a fashion show that blurs in soft red and white “EVERYONE’S EQUAL” and “CYNICISM MASQUERADING AS OPTIMISM”. As the storyline continues, themes of political ideologies bounce around.
In Part 2 is where we move on to the yacht. What I found most interesting is that it shows scenes of workers above and below deck and we see the overlap between race and class. The workers above deck are white people, the “face workers” as my best friend labelled them. And below deck are the people of color - the Filipinos, which we recognized when we heard Tagalog speaking in the hallways, and Black and South Asians.
When I saw the Filipinos below deck, minding their own business whilst the face workers above deck were screaming money on the prospect of receiving huge tips from the guests, I wanted to dig deeper into why that is. We see some kind of disparity between white people and people of color, but it made me think of the Labor Export Policy in the Philippines, an economic model that I believe is also found in the global south where workers migrate to find jobs and send money back — one of the things that help the Philippine economy function.
Not just Filipino workers but people of color in general experience structural racism, in which migrants and Black and Brown people experience a downward mobility and often end up working in service jobs like housekeeping and cleaning. I love how Östlund highlights this by portraying the cleaners as Brown women and the mechanics working below deck as Brown men which really reveals economic inequalities - which I thought was ironic, especially since unreliable characters like Carl push out the ideology of equality (e.g. when Carl kept reiterating gender equality during and after the dinner scene).
There is a role-switch in which the capitalistic hierarchy collapsed when the yacht sank. Their belongings were lost, money didn’t matter, and their situation now is a matter of surviving with what they have. It was empowering to see Abigail (played by Filipina, Dolly de Leon), who on the yacht was the toilet manager, established herself as now the ‘captain’ after she showed her dominance after hunting octopus.
This part of the film really showed us that it really doesn’t matter what our skin color, wealth, economic background — we all have the same needs. But in a society like ours, there are certain groups of people who have the upper hand. The scene where Abigail claims her place as the captain definitely gives off Marxism vibes, but overall an interesting shift of perspective in how we view society especially after seeing the group living a lavishly luxurious lifestyle exclusive to the elites.
The film, just like “Parasite” and “The Platform”, exposes the layers of inequalities we overlook and igniting conversations on how we live amongst a society, how we treat others economically, and solutions that will help everyone. But is that idea feasible? What do you think?
Some personal updates!!!
Thank you once again for the continued to support to those who still open and read my newsletters! The past few weeks have been busy, explaining the lag of the newsletter’s schedule. The reason behind it is that I recently got a new job! And because of that, you will be expecting new content once every two weeks rather than weekly. I still enjoy and am passionate about The Kultura, but will have to shift my commitment to other things.