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

By Hattie Lindert  |  February 28, 2023 | 2:47pm
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Triangle Of Sadness director Ruben Östlund wants to make pissed-off history at Cannes
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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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