Ruben Östlund On Keeping ‘Triangle Of Sadness’ Social Media Critiques Timeless [Interview]

It may just be an intriguing coincidence, but one of your ensemble characters is a Russian oligarch. And you premiered two months after every Russian oligarch in the world, basically, has been punished after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Did you look at that as happenstance or an inevitability?

You know what I think happened because the film is dealing a little bit with the eastern perspective of the world, and the western perspective of the world. That had been such a big part of my upbringing, brought up in the 80s in Sweden. Sweden was in the middle. We were a neutral country, and we had a big eastern side of Europe, on that side, that was standing for communism, and Marxist ideas. Then on our western side, we were just equally as influenced by liberal capitalism. When I was doing the film, and it was almost finished, I felt, “O.K. This eastern, western way of looking at the world is over.” But all of a sudden, the Russian invasion came, and, bam, we were back to looking at the world from an eastern, western perspective. So, I would say that made the film end up in a light that I didn’t expect would happen. Then of course came all these absurd things with the Russian oligarchs, and the yachts, and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. It is interesting. When it takes five years to do a film, you never know what kind of context it’s going to come out in.

This is your first completely English language project. I know you did some audience testing because you wanted to see how audiences reacted to it. Did that process help you at all, in terms of timing for the comedy?

Yeah. For me, it’s something that I have done in the three last films. Because it’s such a difference if you watch something together in one room, or if you watch something alone by a screen. So, when I’m editing, the film will have one rhythm. But when I play it in a cinema, when you have 50 people or more, the rhythm of the film will completely change. So, I can’t basically predict how the rhythm will be when I watch it with a group of people. The thing is that with an audience, like in a cinema, the audience is going to create a dynamic to the film that is going to give something back, and going to create the show. It’s going to create the value of going to the cinema, basically. So, I have to know what is going to happen with the film when it’s going to play in front of an audience. And I had a very painful experience of not doing this carefully enough when I did a film called “Play.” “Play” is consisting of very long sequence shows. We had a premier in Cannes, and the feeling was the rhythm is not right. I’m pushing the scenes too far. And I had a guy sitting in front of me, and this was on the premiere. When he sees the first scene of the film, he’s like, “Ah, I don’t want to watch this. Oh my God, a long shot. Oh my God.” He ended up completely in the wrong film. So, I get this painful experience. I go to Munich Film Festival. I decide to watch the film once again with an audience because I have to understand how to cut the film. What happens this time? There’s one guy in the audience that gets so provoked by the long shorts, that he starts to go, “F**k!” He’s screaming over this. And he’s like, “Whoa. What is the director doing? He should be cutting.” And then after that, okay, I have to try out how the film works with an audience. Since it’s a cinema movie, it’s absurd that I don’t do it. I have friends working in the theater. And theater, that’s a very crucial part of the process, that you are playing through the play with an audience because that is what is going to happen in the end. So, it’s not about asking them if they understand, how they like the ending, and so on. It’s about finding the dynamics. And I heard quite recently that when [John Cleese’s Video Arts] did “A Fish Called Wanda,” they were doing 12 test screenings at the end of the process, in order to fine-tune the humor, with a full house cinema basically. So, I think that we end up dealing with cinema movies, we have to understand this is the unique point of creating cinema, that people are watching things together. Therefore, we have to create a great show to get in with the audience.

I will assume that you are hoping that many people will see this in the theater with other people, and not just streaming at home.

Yes. Hopefully.

When you started seeing it with an audience, was there anything that you were most happy about in terms of, “This sequence played the way I hoped it would.” “I was nervous about it on paper, but it actually worked the way I hoped”?

There was one reaction during Cannes, I think it was during the press screening, and it was a person in the audience screaming, “This is cinema!” And that is exactly what I was aiming for when we were making the film. Of course, the topic is super important, but I wanted to create a wild, entertaining rollercoaster for adults. I wanted them to say, “This is the reason why we’re going to the cinema.” So when I heard there was one of the people working with marketing that told me, “Okay, there was someone screaming, ‘This is cinema!'” It’s like, “Whoa. Yes. This I love.”

I don’t know if there’s a better compliment you can get than to have your movie screened at Cannes, and someone to scream, “This is cinema.” Before I let you go, I know you’ve spent so much time working on “Triangle,“ but do you know what you’re doing next?

Yes. It’s a film called “The Entertainment System Is Down,” and it takes place on a long-haul flight. So, I can think of a flight that is maybe 15 hours or something like that. I don’t know, Sydney to London, or something like that. Quite soon after the takeoff, the passengers get the horrible message from the crew that unfortunately there will be no entertainment on this flight. You’re doomed to spend time with your own thoughts, and your partner, I don’t know, without digital distraction. So, I’m going to look at the modern human being when we take away this little tool, and this possibility to distract ourselves, and I’m going to do it with a sociological approach. And I’m going to have a lot of fun. I already know how it’s going to end because everybody will die on this flight. It’s the passenger that is causing their own death, because of the lack of entertainment. And I have found a very realistic way of reaching that point. So yes, we will actually believe this could happen.

One last follow-up, how do you feel about shooting in one self-contained space for whatever, however long the movie will be?

Horrible. Horrible. It’s going to be one of the biggest challenges because you also can get so tired of a set. And you can long for getting to another set because you know every single frame. So, I think one of the absolutely biggest challenges with this film is, how do you create an epic feeling of a film that only takes place in one location. So, if I said “We are going to create the most spectacular avalanche scene, or vomit scene in film history,” O.K. It’s going to be the most visually epic film that only takes place in one location. Let’s take it over.

“Triangle of Sadness” is now in limited release.