Bugonia Couldn't Be More Bizarre Than the Science Fiction Psychodrama It's Inspired By
Aegean surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on highly unusual movies. His original stories defy convention, like The Lobster, a film where unattached individuals are compelled to form relationships or risk changed into beasts. Whenever he interprets another creator's story, he tends to draw from original works that’s quite peculiar also — more bizarre, perhaps, than his cinematic take. This proved true regarding the recent Poor Things, a film version of Alasdair Gray’s wonderfully twisted novel, a feminist, sex-positive reimagining of Frankenstein. The director's adaptation is good, but in a way, his unique brand of oddity and the author's balance each other.
The Director's Latest Choice
Lanthimos’ next pick to interpret similarly emerged from unexpected territory. The basis for Bugonia, his latest team-up with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean mix of styles of sci-fi, black comedy, terror, irony, dark psychodrama, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece less because of its subject matter — even if that's far from normal — but due to the frenzied excess of its tone and directorial method. It's an insane journey.
The Burst of Korean Film
There must have been something in the air across Korea at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to an explosion of daringly creative, innovative movies by emerging talents of filmmakers such as Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted concurrently with Bong’s Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those two crime masterpieces, but it shares many traits with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, pointed observations, and bending rules.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! focuses on a troubled protagonist who captures a business tycoon, thinking he's a being from the planet Andromeda, intent on world domination. Initially, this concept is played as farce, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (the actor Shin from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like a charmingly misguided figure. Together with his naive acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) don black PVC ponchos and absurd helmets encrusted with mental shields, and wield ointment as a weapon. But they do succeed in kidnapping intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (the performer) and taking him to the protagonist's isolated home, a ramshackle house/lab he’s built at a mining site amid the hills, where he keeps bees.
Shifting Tones
Moving forward, the film veers quickly into something more grotesque. Byeong-gu straps Kang into a makeshift device and subjects him to harm while ranting outlandish ideas, finally pushing the gentle Su-ni away. However, Kang isn't helpless; powered only by the belief of his elevated status, he is prepared and capable to subject himself awful experiences in hopes of breaking free and dominate the disturbed protagonist. Simultaneously, a deeply unimpressive manhunt for the kidnapper begins. The detectives' foolishness and lack of skill is reminiscent of Memories of Murder, though the similarity might be accidental in a film with a narrative that seems slapdash and improvised.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, fueled by its manic force, trampling genre norms without pause, well past one would assume it to find stability or run out of steam. Occasionally it feels to be a drama about mental health and excessive drug use; sometimes it’s a fantasy allegory on the cruelty of corporate culture; in turns it's a grimy basement horror or a bumbling detective tale. Jang Joon-hwan applies equal measure of feverish dedication to every bit, and the performer is excellent, even though Lee Byeong-gu keeps morphing among wise seer, lovable weirdo, and terrifying psycho in response to the movie’s constant shifts in mood, viewpoint, and story. I think it's by design, not a flaw, but it may prove quite confusing.
Designed to Confuse
It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, of course. Similar to numerous Korean films from that era, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a joyful, extreme defiance for stylistic boundaries on one side, and a genuine outrage about societal brutality on the other. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a society gaining worldwide recognition amid new economic and cultural freedoms. It will be fascinating to observe how Lanthimos views this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing without charge.
