Cinema of unease

Celebrated Swedish director Ruben Östlund talks about why his portraits of human failure come from a positive place. 

- RUSSELL BAILLIE

Ruben Östlund might be the most prominent European filmmaker of his generation but his movies weren't always caustic comedies or unsettling takedowns of masculinity, capitalism, or art-world pretensions. That came later. The Swede started out making ski films he'd first loved as a teenage ski bum.

They had names like Free Radicals "arguably the most celebrated Swedish ski film ever" - and, yes, Free Radicals 2. Artistically, it was all uphill from there - film school, student shorts and documentaries, including one where he got his parents to explain their divorce, before his early features. His two most recent films both won the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or. His latest, Triangle of Sadness, is among this year's 10 Best Picture Oscar contenders, while Östlund is also up for best director and best original screenplay.

Yes, his international breakthrough, 2014's Force Majeure, involved a ski resort and an avalanche, but Östlund has gone from capturing adrenalin rushes on alpine white powder to creating anxiety-inducing black comedies at sea level. And just as those free skiers pushed the limit, the writer-director has found other ways of leaving cinema audiences with their hearts in their mouths. That's even in the seemingly genteel settings of a luxury cruise (where much of Triangle is set) or an art gallery black-tie dinner (in 2017's The Square) where a primate-channelling performance artist provided a strange amuse bouche.

When the Listener connects to Östlund via Zoom, he's in Los Angeles on Oscar campaign duties the day after he's been named jury president for this year's awards at Cannes in May.

Is it strange campaigning for a movie that first premiered almost a year ago?