Bugonia Isn't Likely to Be More Bizarre Than the Science Fiction Psychodrama It's Based On
Greek avant-garde director Yorgos Lanthimos is known for highly unusual movies. His unique screenplays veer into the bizarre, for instance The Lobster, in which unattached individuals are compelled to form relationships or face changed into beasts. Whenever he interprets someone else’s work, he tends to draw from source material that’s pretty odd as well — stranger, maybe, than his adaptation of it. Such was the situation with 2023’s Poor Things, a film version of author Alasdair Gray's wonderfully twisted novel, an empowering, liberated take on Frankenstein. His film stands strong, but to some extent, his unique brand of weirdness and the novelist's balance each other.
His New Adaptation
His following selection for adaptation similarly emerged from far out in left field. The source text for Bugonia, his latest team-up with star Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean mix of styles of sci-fi, dark humor, terror, irony, psychological thriller, and cop drama. It's an unusual piece less because of its plot — although that's far from normal — but due to the frenzied excess of its mood and directorial method. It's an insane journey.
The Burst of Korean Film
It seems there was a creative spirit across Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, was part of an explosion of audacious in style, groundbreaking movies from fresh voices of filmmakers such as Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released the same year as Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those iconic films, but it shares many traits with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, pointed observations, and bending rules.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! revolves around a troubled protagonist who kidnaps a corporate CEO, thinking he's a being hailing from Andromeda, intent on world domination. At first, that idea unfolds as farce, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like a charmingly misguided figure. He and his innocent circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) don black PVC ponchos and absurd helmets fitted with psyche-protection gear, and wield menthol rub in combat. However, they manage in seizing inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (the performer) and bringing him to a secluded location, a makeshift laboratory he’s built at a mining site in the mountains, home to his apiary.
Shifting Tones
Hereafter, the narrative turns into ever more unsettling. Byeong-gu straps Kang onto a crude contraption and physically abuses him while ranting bizarre plots, ultimately forcing his kind girlfriend away. However, Kang isn't helpless; powered only by the belief of his elevated status, he can and will to undergo horrifying ordeals to attempt an exit and dominate the mentally unstable protagonist. Meanwhile, a deeply unimpressive manhunt to find the criminal gets underway. The cops’ witlessness and clumsiness recalls Memories of Murder, though it’s not so clearly intentional within a story with plotting that comes off as rushed and unrehearsed.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, propelled by its manic force, breaking rules along the way, even when you might expect it to find stability or falter. Occasionally it feels as a character study on instability and excessive drug use; at other times it becomes a fantasy allegory on the cruelty of corporate culture; in turns it's a claustrophobic thriller or a sloppy cop movie. The filmmaker brings the same level of feverish dedication throughout, and the performer is excellent, even though Lee Byeong-gu keeps morphing between savant prophet, charming oddball, and dangerous lunatic depending on the movie’s constant shifts across style, angle, and events. One could argue this is intentional, not a flaw, but it might feel quite confusing.
Intentional Disorientation
Jang probably consciously intended to confuse viewers, of course. Like so many Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by an exuberant rejection for genre limits in one aspect, and a quite sincere anger about human cruelty in another respect. It stands as a loud proclamation of a society establishing its international presence during emerging financial and cultural freedoms. It will be fascinating to observe how Lanthimos views the original plot from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing without charge.
