Before 'Triangle of Sadness', This Dark Comedy Was Ruben Östlund's Masterpiece

When Triangle of Sadness stormed its way onto the mainstream stage, breaking free of its arthouse roots to achieve Academy Award recognition, it caught everyone offguard. Coming at the tail end of a wave of films all espousing the "eat the rich" philosophy, it stood out from the crowd due to its commitment to cringe-inducing set pieces and its commitment to taking broad comedic sensibilities and packaging them in the veneer of a more serious-minded prestige film. It was a film that found space for the highs of explosive projectile vomiting out of a Monty Python skit and the lows of all the characters we've grown attached to revealing themselves as selfish and spiteful gremlins, if the opportunity presented itself. This juxtaposition is something its writer-director Ruben Östlund is a particular master at, as exemplified in his previous film, The Square, which sought to skewer the world of high class art, but still remains focused on the concepts of social privilege and the self-serving nature of humanity.