Triangle of Sadness: a classic about power relations and buying and selling in society.

So, did Abigail kill Yaya or not? 

This question has been haunting me since last night, when I watched the film "The Triangle of Sadness," which won the 2022 Palme d'Or and is nominated for an Oscar in three categories, including best picture.

Directed by Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, the film satirizes the lives of the super-rich, who embark on a luxury cruise and then find themselves stranded on an island after a shipwreck.

The question of whether or not murder occurred, which the film doesn't answer, actually says more about ourselves. Ultimately, it's a question of whether or not we should maintain our faith in humanity.

In the plot, Yaya is a model who, at the beginning of the film, has a conflict with her boyfriend Carl, also a model, after an argument about who should pay for dinner. While the man rejects the objectification of women, who earn more than he does, she also justifies herself with the argument that she needs a provider in a society where her only value is fleeting beauty.

A beautiful situation that guarantees the couple a spot on a cruise for the rich, without them having to pay anything for it. On this trip, one of the central characters is a Russian billionaire who literally sells "shit." In his case, fertilizer, but the metaphor could apply to any billionaire today. Deep down, in a mercantile society, everyone sells "shit" in exchange for hard cash. And the value that society assigns to each individual is in no way associated with their real contribution to the community.

On the ship, a clash occurs between the Russian billionaire and the captain, who fills his time with alcohol and Marxist readings. After a scatological dinner, reminiscent of Luis Buñuel's "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie," the two reflect on capitalism and communism in a completely unusual way.

The following day, when the situation could return to normal, a pirate attack causes a shipwreck that washes some survivors ashore on an island, where a proletarian revolution takes place during the first meal. It is then that Abigail, the ship's chambermaid, seizes power as she is the only person capable of fishing with her bare hands and building a fire. In this new society, without surplus value, labor prevails over capital. And if before the relationships were based on the logic of buying and selling that governs capitalist society, now they shift to a master-slave dynamic. To such an extent that Carl, who rejected the objectification of Yaya, prostitutes himself for a few pieces of fish.

The question of whether or not Abigail murdered Yaya arises when this new social order is shaken by the discovery that the shipwrecked can, after all, be saved, once an elevator to a luxury resort is found.

Throughout her time on the island, Yaya perhaps proves to be the most humane character – by humanity we mean what we perceive as good and generous in her. But when she glimpses a way out of her uncomfortable situation and returns to the old world ruled by money and beauty, the model tells Abigail that she can be her assistant, which brings us back to the initial question:

So, did Abigail kill Yaya or not?

(Sadly, actress Charlbi Dean, who plays Yaya, passed away prematurely at the age of 32, three days before the film's premiere).