Two-time Palme d’Or winning Swedish director Ruben Östlund has built a reputation for himself as an acutely observant social anthropologist, skewering human behaviour in his whip-sharp, critically-acclaimed films.
Force Majeure is an excruciating look at the aftermath of an avalanche in a ski resort when a father chooses to save himself (and his iPhone) instead of his wife and kids. The Oscar-nominated Triangle Of Sadness, meanwhile, set on a yacht, pilloried the obnoxious behaviour of the super-rich, laughing at the fact that seasickness is the ultimate social leveller, no matter how many millions you have in the bank, as highlighted by that controversial bodily functions scene.
So what can we expect from Östlund’s new film, The Entertainment System Is Down? Well, he’s going to go even further than before, as he predicted to Variety: ”It’s going to create the biggest walkout in the history of the Cannes Film Festival.” OK, consider us highly intrigued.
What do we know so far about his new film?
Unlike some directors, Östlund is pretty open about discussing his future work. As well revealing it will be inspired by Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, back in August 2022, he told Screen Daily that The Entertainment System Is Down is going to be a “disaster movie” set on a plane and explained: “Quite soon after take-off, the crew has the horrible announcement to the passengers – unfortunately the entertainment system is down. So the passengers are doomed to 15 hours of non-digital distraction in their life. It’s going to be very interesting to investigate how we get to the chaos on that flight, I think it’s 100% possible, in a believable way, to create such chaos on the flight that it crashes.”
At the time, Östlund said he was beginning to collect real-life stories for the film, and explained that one he was considering might hark back to 2014’s Force Majeure: “Someone was on a flight from Europe to the US, and they were flying over Greenland, and all of a sudden it became very heavy turbulence. 20% of the oxygen masks fell down; but only 20%. So it became a fight to get an oxygen mask. Half-a-minute later the crew came out and said, ‘Sorry, nothing happened, it was a false alarm’ – a bit like a mass Force Majeure situation. Because then you’re going to spend another four or five hours together with the person you’ve wrestled with.”
Alongside this, he told France 24 that one story will include an unbroken 10-minute scene of a child having to wait for his turn on an iPad, which could be the reason for Östlund’s predicted mass-walkout: “When they start to realise that this is a real-time shot, I think a lot of people are going to be very, very frustrated. I want to create history."
As for the cast, they’re yet to be announced, but Östlund likes to work with a brand new set of actors for each production, with the exception of Woody Harrelson, who will be returning from Triangle Of Sadness to the new social satire. His role is still to be announced, but maybe the crazed captain has turned his hand to flying planes?
