Bugonia Can't Possibly Be More Bizarre Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Inspired By
Aegean avant-garde filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is known for distinctly odd movies. His unique screenplays veer into the bizarre, for instance The Lobster, in which singletons are compelled to form relationships or else be being turned into animals. Whenever he interprets existing material, he often selects source material that’s quite peculiar as well — stranger, perhaps, than his adaptation of it. That was the case with 2023’s Poor Things, a screen interpretation of Alasdair Gray’s delightfully aberrant novel, a pro-female, sex-positive reimagining of Frankenstein. His film is effective, but in a way, his specific style of eccentricity and the novelist's neutralize one another.
The Director's Latest Choice
The filmmaker's subsequent choice to bring to screen was likewise drawn from the fringes. The basis for Bugonia, his latest project alongside star Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean mix of styles of science fiction, black comedy, terror, irony, dark psychodrama, and cop drama. It's an unusual piece less because of what it’s about — although that's far from normal — but due to the frenzied excess of its tone and storytelling style. It's an insane journey.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
There likely existed a certain energy across Korea during that period. Save the Green Planet!, written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to an explosion of audacious in style, boundary-pushing movies from a new generation of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted alongside Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those two crime masterpieces, but there are similarities with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! revolves around a troubled protagonist who captures a chemical-company executive, convinced he is an alien from the planet Andromeda, plotting an attack. At first, that idea is presented as slapstick humor, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), comes across as an endearing eccentric. Alongside his childlike entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) don plastic capes and ridiculous headgear encrusted with mental shields, and use menthol rub as a weapon. However, they manage in kidnapping inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (the performer) and transporting him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a ramshackle house/lab constructed at a mining site in the mountains, which houses his beehives.
A Descent into Darkness
From this point, the story shifts abruptly into something more grotesque. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and physically abuses him while ranting bizarre plots, eventually driving his kind girlfriend away. Yet the captive is resilient; driven solely by the certainty of his own superiority, he is willing and able to subject himself horrifying ordeals just to try to escape and lord it over the mentally unstable protagonist. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate investigation for the abductor commences. The officers' incompetence and incompetence recalls Memories of Murder, even if the similarity might be accidental in a movie with plotting that comes off as rushed and improvised.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, fueled by its manic force, defying conventions along the way, well past it seems likely it to find stability or falter. Occasionally it feels to be a drama regarding psychological issues and excessive drug use; sometimes it’s a metaphorical narrative on the cruelty of corporate culture; sometimes it’s a dirty, tense scare-fest or an incompetent police story. The filmmaker maintains a consistent degree of intense focus to every bit, and the lead actor is excellent, although the character of Byeong-gu constantly changes between visionary, lovable weirdo, and terrifying psycho in response to the narrative's fluidity across style, angle, and events. I think that’s a feature, not a mistake, but it can be pretty disorienting.
Purposeful Chaos
It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, mind. Similar to numerous Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a joyful, extreme defiance for genre limits on one side, and a profound fury about human cruelty on the other. It stands as a loud proclamation of a society establishing its international presence alongside fresh commercial and social changes. It will be fascinating to see Lanthimos' perspective on the original plot from a current U.S. standpoint — perhaps, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing for free.
