Bugonia Couldn't Be More Bizarre Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Based On
Aegean surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on highly unusual movies. The narratives he creates are weird, for instance The Lobster, in which unattached individuals must partner up or face being turned into animals. When he adapts another creator's story, he tends to draw from basis material that’s quite peculiar too — odder, maybe, than his adaptation of it. That was the case regarding the recent Poor Things, an adaptation of the novel by Alasdair Gray delightfully aberrant novel, an empowering, open-minded spin on Frankenstein. The director's adaptation stands strong, but to some extent, his specific style of oddity and the novelist's balance each other.
The Director's Latest Choice
The filmmaker's subsequent choice for adaptation was likewise drawn from far out in left field. The source text for Bugonia, his newest project alongside star Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean genre stew of science fiction, dark humor, terror, irony, psychological thriller, and cop drama. It's an unusual piece not primarily due to its subject matter — although that's decidedly unusual — but due to the wild intensity of its atmosphere and storytelling style. It’s a wild, wild ride.
The Burst of Korean Film
It seems there was a certain energy across Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, was part of a surge of audacious in style, groundbreaking movies from a new generation of filmmakers such as Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted concurrently with the director's Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn't as acclaimed as those iconic films, but it’s got a lot in common with them: extreme violence, dark comedy, bitter social commentary, and defying expectations.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! focuses on a troubled protagonist who kidnaps a business tycoon, convinced he is an alien hailing from Andromeda, plotting an attack. At first, this concept is presented as broad comedy, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a charmingly misguided figure. Together with his innocent acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) sport slick rainwear and absurd helmets fitted with mental shields, and employ menthol rub for defense. However, they manage in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (the performer) and transporting him to the protagonist's isolated home, a dilapidated building assembled on an old mine in a rural area, which houses his beehives.
Shifting Tones
From this point, the narrative turns into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and inflicts pain while ranting bizarre plots, finally pushing the innocent partner away. But Kang is no victim; driven solely by the belief of his elevated status, he can and will to undergo awful experiences to attempt an exit and lord it over the clearly unwell protagonist. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate investigation for the abductor begins. The officers' incompetence and clumsiness recalls Memories of Murder, though it’s not so clearly intentional within a story with a narrative that appears haphazard and spontaneous.
Constant Shifts
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, propelled by its wild momentum, defying conventions without pause, long after it seems likely it to either settle down or run out of steam. Sometimes it seems to be a drama regarding psychological issues and overmedication; in parts it transforms into a metaphorical narrative regarding the indifference of corporate culture; sometimes it’s a grimy basement horror or a sloppy cop movie. Jang Joon-hwan brings the same level of hysterical commitment throughout, and the performer is excellent, although Lee Byeong-gu continuously shifts among savant prophet, charming oddball, and frightening madman as required by the film's ever-changing tone in tone, perspective, and plot. It seems that’s a feature, not a flaw, but it may prove rather bewildering.
Designed to Confuse
It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, indeed. In line with various Korean films from that era, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries partly, and a quite sincere anger about man’s inhumanity to man on the other. It stands as a loud proclamation of a nation finding its global voice alongside fresh commercial and social changes. It promises to be intriguing to observe Lanthimos' perspective on the same story from a current U.S. standpoint — perhaps, an opposite perspective.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing at no cost.
