(Cannes) It was a heavyweight Saturday in Cannes when two former Palme d’or winners came into play, with works very critical of the failings of the time: Ruben Östlund, for The Square in 2017, and Cristian Mungiu, 10 years earlier for 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days.
Posted at 7:00 p.m.
Triangle of Sadness is the first feature film in English by Swedish director Ruben Östlund, which was revealed at Cannes in 2014 thanks to the excellent force majeure, Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section. The 48-year-old filmmaker signs another social satire in the tone of The Squarewith an extradose of cynicism about the human condition.
At the heart of this tragicomedy is the young couple formed by Carl and Yaya, both models and influencers. At the very beginning of the film, the meaning of the film’s title is revealed, as a shirtless Carl participates in an audition for a fashion show. “Maybe he needs Botox?” asks one of the evaluators, speaking of a wrinkle on Carl’s forehead.
“In Swedish, we call it the worry wrinkle”, explained Ruben Östlund in a press meeting with the Festival. “She would be a sign that we had a lot of trials in her life. I found it to be indicative of our times’ obsession with appearance and the fact that inner well-being is, in a way, secondary. »
It was Östlund’s wife, who is a fashion photographer, who inspired him with characters from that superficial universe teeming with hypocritical advertising slogans about equality, diversity and respect for the environment, while the we know that the fast fashion is anything but environmentally friendly.
Triangle of Sadness is divided into three chapters. Initially, we get to know Carl and Yaya through an ethical dilemma reminiscent of that of force majeure, while a father, faced with the threat of an avalanche, had the reflex to grab his phone rather than his child, causing a crisis in his couple.
PHOTO VALERY HACHE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Some members of the team Triangle of Sadness : Jean-Christophe Folly, Ruben Östlund, Charlbi Dean, Henrik Dorsin, Vicki Berlin, Arvin Kananian, Woody Harrelson, Dolly de Leon and Sunnyi Melles
Carl can’t hide his irritation when his girlfriend once again lets him settle the bill at the restaurant. She is richer than him and had promised the day before to pay the bill. He thinks she’s a feminist when it suits him. She can’t get over her lack of gallantry. He doesn’t let go. She is manipulative. He lacks self-confidence.
Nobody stages the “beautiful discomforts” like Ruben Östlund. After the Fashion Week they attend, Carl and Yaya are invited on a luxury cruise on a yacht, courtesy of their many Instagram followers. They give the impression, of course, of leading a dream life, but Carl’s jealousy and Yaya’s princess fantasies create a lot of tension between them.
On the ship, billionaires rub shoulders with much less fortunate employees. Russia’s self-proclaimed “shit king” who made his fortune in fertilizers, a Swede who recently sold his tech company for a fortune, an elderly British couple whose family business specializes in of “tools for access to democracy”, that is to say grenades and anti-personnel mines…
We recognize, in particular in this second chapter, the irresistible black humor of Ruben Östlund. His brilliant gaze, full of acuity on class dynamics, privileges, abuse of power, the vulgarity of the new rich, the excesses of capitalism or even sex as currency.
When a rough storm looms, and the ship’s alcoholic – and Marxist – captain (Woody Harrelson) throws a gala dinner anyway, the drunken boat rocks and the story of Triangle of Sadness turns into an enjoyable delirium of excess of all kinds… before inevitably running out of steam at the end of a far too long third chapter. At 2 h 30 min, Ruben Ostlünd shows complacency and I would not be surprised if that harms him with the jury. Yet he was off so well…
The rise… of the far right
In a completely different register, Cristian Mungiu presented on Saturday NMR (for “nuclear magnetic resonance”). “Given the state of the world, I think we all need a brain scan,” the Romanian filmmaker told the magazine. HollywoodReporter this week, in order to explain the intriguing title of his film.
PHOTO LOÏC VENANCE, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Cristian Mungiu, Romanian director
Matthias, a gruff and obtuse man who went into exile in Germany to find work, returns to his native, multi-ethnic village in Transylvania. His father, Otto, is unwell and his 8-year-old son, Rudi, hasn’t spoken since he suddenly got irrationally frightened in the forest on his way to school.
When the bread factory managed by his ex-girlfriend Csilla decides to recruit employees from Sri Lanka, for lack of local manpower, the villagers rise up to demand that the workers be immediately sent back to their country. “We have nothing against them, they say in chorus, but we prefer them at home!” »
It is this uninhibited xenophobic discourse, fed by the far right, which has invaded Europe (and not only Europe…) that Cristian Mungiu is interested in NMR. He was inspired by a news item about a village in Romania, where citizens of Romanian, Hungarian and German origin live, which wanted in 2020 to drive out the foreign workers who had been there from the local factory. been hired.
Islamophobia, racist stereotypes about hygiene and disease, fear of invasion, theory of the “great replacement”: Mungiu, Screenplay Prize at Cannes in 2012 for Beyond the hills and Directing Award for Baccalaureate in 2016, especially not sparing his compatriots.
He underlines the paradox of a community made up of people from different countries, speaking different languages, who are themselves despised abroad, but do not accept to welcome anything other than white Europeans. “By discovering the details of this news item, says the 54-year-old filmmaker, I noticed how fragile the notions of empathy and humanity are. But also that it takes very little for human beings to awaken the dark side that lies dormant in them. »
NMR is, in the image of this observation, an austere film, gray, snowy landscapes and desolation, like most of the works of Cristian Mungiu. The filmmaker’s gaze on his society is implacable. He does not, however, spare the rest of Europe, through the character of a young Frenchman who works for an NGO (and whose job is to count the number of bears in the forest), to whom the we recall the disastrous effects of colonization and the failure of the integration of African, black and Arab populations in France.
Cristian Mungiu offers another courageous, disturbing, destabilizing film, whose enigmatic conclusion, in the form of a fable, nevertheless left me dubious. After 8 out of 21 films, I’m still waiting for an authentic crush in this 75and official competition of the Cannes Film Festival.