Triangle Of Sadness director Ruben Östlund wants to make pissed-off history at Cannes
Ruben Östlund jokes that he wants his next movie, a dark comedy set on a long-haul flight, to create the biggest walkout in festival history
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Triangle Of Sadness director Ruben Östlund is no stranger to courting controversy—the film’s “free Botox with a theater ticket” promotion reveals as much. But the Swedish filmmaker has even larger scale plans for his next film, which he jokes with Variety he hopes causes the biggest walkout in Cannes history.
Östlund’s next movie, the dark comedy The Entertainment System is Down, takes place on a long-haul flight that loses power on its entertainment system. The director says the film will focus on passengers, “modern human beings that are have [sic] to deal with boredom and their own thoughts.”
Speaking with Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast, Östlund teases one scene where a young boy has to wait five minutes before being allowed to borrow his brother’s iPad. (Who on earth is more squirmy than a little boy given a five-minute timeline before receiving a reward?)
“And then I want to challenge the audience,” Ostlund teases. “You stay with the kid in real time. And he’s looking in the catalog, putting it back and the restlessness is coming. So he asks his mother, ‘How much do we have left?’ And she says, ‘Well, now it’s four minutes and 45 seconds, you have to calm down.’”
While Triangle Of Sadness grappled with the insidious shallowness of the 1% (and used a whole lot of vomit to do so), Östlund has consistently aimed to create discomfort with his films. 2015's Force Majuere and 2017's Palme d’Or-winning The Square each luxuriate in forcing their central characters to navigate unsettling situations; The Entertainment System Is Down sounds thoroughly in line with that theme.
“I think it’s going to be more provocative than any violent, any disturbing content,” Östlund says of his vision for the film. “Because to be left alone with your thoughts and challenging the audience to do the same thing, then it’s going to be very interesting.”
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I didn’t mind Triangle of Sadness. But it really didn’t bring the heat.
I know, I feel like Ostlund isn’t quite making the points he thinks he’s making, making him sort of appear as the parody of what he’s attempting to parody.
With original music by John Cage *whisper whisper*You think his being dead will make a difference?!
I’m assuming 3’44” will be prominently played. Audience, do not adjust your speakers.
Ooph, this sounds pretty triggering. I HATE long-haul flights. As a teen, I once had to take a 12 hour Space-A flight (i.e. you fly with the military on the cheap, but you can only go where they’re already going to deliver troops/cargo). Perhaps as some form of teenage rebelliousness, I didn’t bring my discman or any other form of entertainment except for a single issue of Entertainment Gaming Monthly. I was done with it pretty quickly, and slowly went insane as I realized that I cannot sleep on flights.Whenever I have to make a 10-12 hour flight (which happens multiple times a year), I will oftentimes intentionally break it up with an overnight stay halfway to the destination – I will gladly eat the extra $300 or so that it usually costs me to do so if it means avoiding a long-haul flight.
I hope that there is one guy in the back of the plane just reading a book, totally confused about why everyone else is freaking out.
I see someone replacing the mushrooms in the mushroom ravioli with a huge stash of psychedelics and the first five minutes is just a short film of his frustrating life leading up to when he goes to the factory and doses the food. The vegans who ordered the peanut butter and jelly and the guy with fungal allergies stare on in disbelief.
I literally rolled my eyes after reading that title. Östlund has a lot of skills but subtlety is often not one of them.
So he’s making a movie about flying Spirit?
I’m not a great flier and the entertainment system being down is a fear of mine, so I always travel with a fully charged iPad filled with downloaded movies and shows that will get me through the length of the whole flight, plus any potential delays (I watched a lot of Golden Girls on a flight not that long ago that was delayed three hours combined at the gate and on the tarmac). Also some of those systems are so outdated and the screens so small you’re better off with an iPad anyway.
“Because to be left alone with your thoughts and challenging the audience to do the same thing, then it’s going to be very interesting.” Yes, because we all watch movies to be left alone with our thoughts, not to, like, escape that very scenario.He will receive 12 BAFTA and 14 Oscar nominations for this.
Imagine sitting down in front of a 2-D screen being shown make-believe by people in costumes, possibly fighting aliens or growing celery on Mars, and deciding, “Thank god… last thing I want to have to do is be forced to use my brain and think about what I’m watching.”
I rarely advocate for remakes, but I want an American remake of Triangle of Sadness. It’s so close, but I think its themes would be so much more potent tying to the United States than to Eurotrash
Yeah, but in the end, Abigail would get millions of dollars from the passengers and Carl and Yaya would get married and live happily ever after.
Put Gina Carano in it.
If I walked out it would be due to how much of an eye-roller this concept sounds like. “People these days are always on their screens: The Movie.” Wow such cutting edge satire, that kind of profound commentary on modern life can only come from a real artiste.