Bugonia Isn't Likely to Be Stranger Than the Science Fiction Psychodrama It's Based On
Aegean surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos is known for highly unusual movies. His unique screenplays defy convention, for instance The Lobster, where unattached individuals are compelled to form relationships or face being turned into animals. When he adapts someone else’s work, he frequently picks original works that’s pretty odd too — odder, perhaps, than his adaptation of it. That was the case with 2023’s Poor Things, an adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s delightfully aberrant novel, an empowering, sex-positive spin on Frankenstein. The director's adaptation stands strong, but to some extent, his unique brand of oddity and the author's neutralize one another.
The Director's Latest Choice
His following selection for adaptation also came from far out in left field. The basis for Bugonia, his recent project alongside star Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a perplexing Korean fusion of science fiction, black comedy, horror, irony, dark psychodrama, and police procedural. It’s a strange film less because of its plot — though that is highly unconventional — but due to the wild intensity of its atmosphere and narrative approach. The film is a rollercoaster.
The Burst of Korean Film
There must have been something in the air 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, innovative movies by emerging talents of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released alongside the director'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 it’s got a lot in common with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and bending rules.
The Story Develops
Save the Green Planet! revolves around a troubled protagonist who captures a chemical-company executive, believing he’s a being from the planet Andromeda, intent on world domination. Early on, that idea is played as broad comedy, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (the actor Shin known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like an endearing eccentric. Together with his innocent circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) sport black PVC ponchos and bizarre masks encrusted with mental shields, and employ balm as a weapon. But they do succeed in seizing inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and taking him to a secluded location, a dilapidated building constructed at a mining site amid the hills, which houses his beehives.
Growing Tension
From this point, the narrative turns into ever more unsettling. Byeong-gu straps Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and subjects him to harm while ranting outlandish ideas, eventually driving his kind girlfriend away. Yet the captive is resilient; fueled entirely by the certainty of his innate dominance, he can and will to subject himself awful experiences just to try to escape and lord it over the disturbed protagonist. At the same time, a comically inadequate investigation for the kidnapper gets underway. The cops’ witlessness and clumsiness recalls Memories of Murder, though the similarity might be accidental within a story with a plot that seems slapdash and spontaneous.
Constant Shifts
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, fueled by its wild momentum, trampling genre norms along the way, long after one would assume it to either settle down or run out of steam. Occasionally it feels to be a drama regarding psychological issues and pharmaceutical abuse; at other times it becomes a symbolic tale about the callousness of the economic system; sometimes it’s a claustrophobic thriller or a bumbling detective tale. The filmmaker maintains a consistent degree of feverish dedication throughout, and the performer shines, while the protagonist constantly changes from savant prophet, endearing eccentric, and dangerous lunatic depending on the narrative's fluidity across style, angle, and events. It seems this is intentional, not a flaw, but it might feel pretty disorienting.
Designed to Confuse
The director likely meant to unsettle spectators, of course. In line with various Korean films from that era, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for genre limits on one side, and a profound fury about human cruelty in another respect. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a society establishing its international presence during emerging financial and cultural freedoms. It will be fascinating to witness the director's interpretation of the original plot from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online for free.
