Bugonia Couldn't Be Stranger Than the Sci-Fi Psychodrama It's Inspired By
Aegean surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in highly unusual movies. His original stories defy convention, such as The Lobster, in which singletons must partner up or face changed into beasts. In adapting existing material, he often selects basis material that’s rather eccentric as well — stranger, possibly, than his cinematic take. Such was the situation for last year's Poor Things, a screen interpretation of the novel by Alasdair Gray delightfully aberrant novel, an empowering, sex-positive spin on Frankenstein. His film is good, but partially, his specific style of weirdness and Gray’s balance each other.
His New Adaptation
Lanthimos’ next pick to interpret also came from unexpected territory. The original work for Bugonia, his newest collaboration with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean fusion of science fiction, black comedy, terror, satire, psychological thriller, and cop drama. The movie is odd not so much for its subject matter — though that is decidedly unusual — rather because of the frenzied excess of its mood and storytelling style. It's an insane journey.
A New Wave of Filmmaking
It seems there was a creative spirit in South Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, was included in a boom of audacious in style, boundary-pushing movies from fresh voices of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out concurrently with Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those celebrated works, but it’s got a lot in common with them: extreme violence, dark comedy, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! revolves around a disturbed young man who kidnaps a business tycoon, thinking he's an alien from the planet Andromeda, plotting an attack. Early on, that idea is played as farce, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a charmingly misguided figure. Together with his naive circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) don black PVC ponchos and ridiculous headgear adorned with mental shields, and use balm as a weapon. Yet they accomplish in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and transporting him to a secluded location, a dilapidated building he’s built in a former excavation in the mountains, where he keeps bees.
A Descent into Darkness
Moving forward, the narrative turns into something more grotesque. Lee fastens Kang into a makeshift device and subjects him to harm while declaiming outlandish ideas, ultimately forcing the innocent partner away. Yet the captive is resilient; powered only by the certainty of his elevated status, he can and will to undergo horrifying ordeals to attempt an exit and lord it over the disturbed younger man. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate investigation for the abductor begins. The detectives' foolishness and incompetence echoes Memories of Murder, even if it’s not so clearly intentional within a story with a narrative that comes off as rushed and unrehearsed.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, driven by its wild momentum, breaking rules without pause, even when one would assume it to either settle down or lose energy. Occasionally it feels like a serious story about mental health and overmedication; in parts it transforms into a symbolic tale on the cruelty of capitalism; sometimes it’s a claustrophobic thriller or a sloppy cop movie. The filmmaker applies equal measure of feverish dedication in all scenes, and the lead actor shines, even though Lee Byeong-gu keeps morphing between wise seer, charming oddball, and dangerous lunatic in response to the narrative's fluidity across style, angle, and events. One could argue this is intentional, not a mistake, but it might feel quite confusing.
Intentional Disorientation
Jang probably consciously intended to unsettle spectators, mind. Similar to numerous Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for genre limits in one aspect, and a genuine outrage about human cruelty additionally. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a culture gaining worldwide recognition alongside fresh commercial and cultural freedoms. It promises to be intriguing to witness how Lanthimos views this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online without charge.
