How to Use Metaphor As a Screenwriter – Case Study: Triangle of Sadness (Part 2)
Check out Part I of this piece here.
Triangle 2: Class
Our avatars in this space are of course Carl and Yaya. They both work as models and Yaya is, additionally, some kind of Influencer. In both professions, having many people’s eyes upon you and being invited to the right parties means little about how much money one actually has. To wit, it’s easy to be known because you’re hot; money isn’t necessarily included.
These two are thus able to step outside class, rubbing elbows with the fantastically wealthy yet having utterly prosaic problems with romance and money. Notice how Yaya can’t afford dinner for a few hundred euros, and Carl definitely can’t afford some 28,000-euro engagement ring.
Nevertheless, thanks to the ever-grinding wheels of internet consumerism, Yaya’s position as an Influencer gets them both a free spot on the cruise.
Carl, for his part, is repeatedly put in his place by casting agents and the door bitches of the fashion show. As early as the opening scenes, we are shown that Carl, as a male model, is “worth less than” a female model. This allows us of course to empathize with his underdog status; it becomes obvious from early on that Yaya has a habit of manipulating Carl. There is but cold comfort when she comes clean about doing so.
The wealthy aboard the yacht represent the worst excesses of capitalism. Dimitry makes this much clear. The cabin crew, the ostensible middle class, work together to ensure good outcomes–tracking with the Captain’s marxist sympathies–despite having to deal with the caprice of the parasitic upper class. Witness crew members hopping over the wealthy’s literal (not figurative) river of shit as the storm progresses.
The below-deck cleaning crew, naturally, are the ones who really keep everything functioning. At least on the yacht we don’t get any sort of sense that they are subject to any particularly horrible conditions. That said, they suffer the indignity of being kept below decks; they are expected to know their place and, although it’s never explicitly stated, never be seen by the guests on the cruise.
Notably the wealthy and the crew are all Westerners, and almost exclusively white, while the cleaning crew are all Filipino. The reader may feel free to connect the dots here with regard to Östlund’s intentions in how to use metaphor here.
So, metaphorically, everyone must deal with the excreta of the wealthy. The different groups must deal with it in different ways, although it might be noted that the crew wears white so they are disproportionately affected by splatter.
Most pertinently to the class analysis is that on the Island, where money has no value, Abigail’s practical skills make her top dog. Abigail is in a position to claim what and whom she wants. No one is in a position to complain here because without her they will die. The problem is that we must wonder how Abigail will be able to maintain even a semblance of the status she has gained if and when the group escapes from the Island. We must wonder if losing this status could be worse than never having it at all.
With that in mind, it seems reasonable for Abigail to protect this status. She has not simply gained a voice here; she is the linchpin of the group’s survival. She understands what she was previously disallowed on the basis of “her class.” It is only reasonable that she would choose to defend her upward mobility by any means necessary.
The film’s cliffhanger ending puts us in an uneasy moral position. Yaya, despite being cuckolded by Abigail, is willing to overlook this friction. She genuinely wants to help and offers Abigail a position as her PA after they escape the island. What Yaya fails to understand, in spite of her good intentions, is that Abigail is still the top dog. This offer–while it makes practical sense in the real world–is a patronizing, subordinating threat. It’s knocking Abigail down a peg or ten, and Abigail will be damned if anyone takes what she has so recently achieved.
Perhaps, then, Östlund would like us to see that while social mobility is possible, it will naturally be poisoned by the hangover of our–demonstrably arbitrary, as we have seen elsewhere in the film–social hierarchies.
Triangle 3: Love
Of course there would be a love triangle. For a film with “triangle” in the title, you’d be disappointed if there weren’t one.
Let’s start from the beginning: early on, Carl pleads that he and Yaya must consider each other equal across the board. Yaya’s “you’ve got to be fucking joking, mate” face is worth pausing on for effect.
Yaya, for her part, tells Carl that she needs to know her partner will take care of her. As the taxi driver warns Carl, Carl must fight for Yaya or he will remain her slave. Östlund would seem to suggest that dynamics persist; it’s mad to suggest that all things can be equal all the time.
Yet we see that Carl, throughout the firm, seems averse to fighting back. In the rare cases where he does try to defend himself; in the elevator with Yaya or against the Shirtless Crew Member, any attempt of Carl’s to show strength come out wrong. They are jealous or aggressive or end with him worse off than he was before. No victory without humiliation.
Let’s focus on the bet that Carl makes with Yaya in the first story: as soon as Yaya tells him that she has become a model specifically to become a Trophy Wife for some rich fuck and she’s basically using him in the meantime, Carl promises that he will convince her to love him, “and it will be real love, too.” It’s worth wondering how Carl, given his low status in the world, would ever be able to pull off such a coup.
Poetically, the Carl’s chance to take care of Yaya ultimately comes from being submissive, becoming Abigail’s Trophy Husband during the Island story. Initially, Yaya seems OK with all of this: she gives Carl permission to do what is necessary, with certain restrictions, as Carl’s affair with Abigail benefits both Yaya and Carl. It’s probably fairly easy to make this leap given that both Carl and Yaya, as models, make their living by being objectified.
Unsurprisingly, Yaya ultimately decides that too much frisky business has gone on in Abigail’s quarters, and that perhaps Carl is enjoying his foray into (effective) prostitution slightly too much. She confronts Carl and Abigail and things take a decided turn. So maybe in the end Carl has managed to win Yaya’s love, but he had to turn himself out to do so. What this says about money, status, and love will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Yaya’s offer of the subordinate job to Abigail is not necessarily a power play, or not intentionally. It is most likely an attempt to make peace while regaining her rightful property (Carl). This, of course, presumes that the stranded folk will soon enter the real world. That may not sit well with Captain Abigail’s plans.
At this point, we see the triangles of Love, Class, and Money all come to a single point: a masterclass in how to use metaphor. Of course we have no true resolution in the film, because there are no easy answers to such things in life. It’s not pure nihilism, either, because the intricate weaving of ideas here shows that Östlund has put great thought into these questions.
That is, of course, is the point. This sort of film would never be made in Hollywood because it doesn’t try to sell easy, bullshit moralization. It doesn’t fluff that tiresome, fundamentally American expectation that everything should have a pat ending. It raises important questions about privilege, love, and society in our neo-Weimar era, but it refuses to answer them.
And maybe that’s another metaphor.
Conclusion
Thérèse, the German stroke victim, is only able to say in den Wolken, which translates to “in the clouds.” She whispers, speaks, or yells the phrase with various degrees of intensity throughout the second and third stories.
Perhaps this is the one place where the point is spoken: we all have our heads in the clouds, unaware of how societal constructs define our lives, loves, thoughts, and communications. We might just all be living on our own deserted islands, unaware that civilization is just the other side of the hill.
Granted, this film ruffled more than a few feathers, most likely because it hit home. For all intents and purposes it’s meant to be European arthouse cinema, but in many ways it might as well be a Marx Brothers film–one where the influence of the rarely-seen fifth Marx brother, Karl, is keenly felt.
Triangle of Sadness asks us to address how fragile, how arbitrary the constructs that guide our lives really are. It asks us to examine our own relationships with Love, Money, and Class. Is asks us to consider how easily these, too, could be upended.
There are real pirates out there.
I’m writing how to use metaphor again here for the evil empire…
