Bugonia Couldn't Be Stranger Than the Science Fiction Psychological Drama It's Adapted From
Aegean avant-garde filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in highly unusual movies. His unique screenplays defy convention, such as The Lobster, where single people must partner up or risk transformed into creatures. In adapting someone else’s work, he frequently picks basis material that’s rather eccentric too — odder, possibly, than his adaptation of it. That was the case regarding the recent Poor Things, an adaptation of author Alasdair Gray's delightfully aberrant novel, an empowering, liberated reimagining of Frankenstein. His film is good, but in a way, his specific style of oddity and Gray’s neutralize one another.
Lanthimos’ Next Pick
Lanthimos’ next pick to interpret also came from far out in left field. The source text for Bugonia, his recent project alongside leading actress Emma Stone, was 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean genre stew of science fiction, black comedy, horror, satire, dark psychodrama, and cop drama. It’s a strange film not primarily due to its plot — though that is far from normal — rather because of the wild intensity of its mood and storytelling style. It's an insane journey.
The Burst of Korean Film
There likely existed a creative spirit in South Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, was included in an explosion of audacious in style, boundary-pushing movies from a new generation of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out alongside the director's Memories of Murder and Park’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, pointed observations, and defying expectations.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who kidnaps a corporate CEO, believing he’s an alien from the planet Andromeda, with plans to invade Earth. Initially, this concept is presented as slapstick humor, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like a lovably deluded fool. He and his naive entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) sport slick rainwear and bizarre masks adorned with psyche-protection gear, and wield ointment for defense. However, they manage in kidnapping drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and bringing him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a makeshift laboratory assembled on an old mine in a rural area, which houses his beehives.
A Descent into Darkness
From this point, the film veers quickly into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and physically abuses him while declaiming bizarre plots, finally pushing the innocent partner away. But Kang is no victim; powered only by the belief of his elevated status, he is willing and able to undergo terrifying trials to attempt an exit and lord it over the disturbed younger man. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate investigation for the abductor commences. The cops’ witlessness and incompetence is reminiscent of Memories of Murder, although the similarity might be accidental in a film with a narrative that comes off as rushed and improvised.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, fueled by its own crazed energy, trampling genre norms along the way, long after you might expect it to calm down or falter. Occasionally it feels to be a drama on instability and excessive drug use; sometimes it’s a metaphorical narrative on the cruelty of capitalism; alternately it serves as a dirty, tense scare-fest or an incompetent police story. Director Jang brings the same level of intense focus throughout, and the performer is excellent, even though Lee Byeong-gu constantly changes between wise seer, charming oddball, and dangerous lunatic in response to the film's ever-changing tone in tone, perspective, and plot. I think that’s a feature, not a flaw, but it might feel quite confusing.
Intentional Disorientation
Jang probably consciously intended to confuse viewers, mind. In line with various Korean films during that period, Save the Green Planet! is driven by a joyful, extreme defiance for artistic rules on one side, and a quite sincere anger about human cruelty on the other. It stands as a loud proclamation of a society gaining worldwide recognition during emerging financial and social changes. One can look forward to see how Lanthimos views this narrative through a modern Western lens — possibly, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing without charge.
