Bugonia Can't Possibly Be More Bizarre Than the Science Fiction Psychodrama It's Based On
Aegean avant-garde director Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in extremely strange movies. His unique screenplays are weird, such as The Lobster, in which singletons are compelled to form relationships or face transformed into creatures. When he adapts existing material, he tends to draw from source material that’s pretty odd as well — stranger, perhaps, than the version he creates. This proved true with 2023’s Poor Things, an adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s wonderfully twisted novel, a feminist, sex-positive spin on Frankenstein. His film stands strong, but partially, his particular flavor of weirdness and Gray’s balance each other.
Lanthimos’ Next Pick
Lanthimos’ next pick for adaptation was likewise drawn from unexpected territory. The basis for Bugonia, his recent project alongside acclaimed performer Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean genre stew of science fiction, black comedy, terror, satire, dark psychodrama, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece not so much for its plot — although that's decidedly unusual — but due to the frenzied excess of its mood and storytelling style. It's an insane journey.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
There must have been a creative spirit in South Korea during that period. Save the Green Planet!, written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan, was included in an explosion of audacious in style, boundary-pushing movies from fresh voices of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released the same year as the director's Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those iconic films, but it’s got a lot in common with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, pointed observations, and genre subversion.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! is about a troubled protagonist who kidnaps a chemical-company executive, thinking he's an extraterrestrial originating in another galaxy, intent on world domination. Early on, this concept unfolds as broad comedy, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (the actor Shin known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like a charmingly misguided figure. He and his innocent entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) wear plastic capes and ridiculous headgear fitted with anti-mind-control devices, and use ointment in combat. But they do succeed in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (the performer) and transporting him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a makeshift laboratory he’s built in a former excavation in a rural area, home to his apiary.
Shifting Tones
Hereafter, the story shifts abruptly into ever more unsettling. The protagonist ties Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and physically abuses him while ranting absurd conspiracy theories, ultimately forcing his kind girlfriend away. Yet the captive is resilient; driven solely by the certainty of his elevated status, he is prepared and capable to subject himself terrifying trials in hopes of breaking free and dominate the disturbed kidnapper. At the same time, a notably inept investigation for the kidnapper commences. The officers' incompetence and clumsiness is reminiscent of Memories of Murder, although the similarity might be accidental in a movie with a plot that seems slapdash and improvised.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, driven by its own crazed energy, defying conventions underfoot, even when one would assume it to find stability or lose energy. At moments it appears like a serious story regarding psychological issues and overmedication; sometimes it’s a symbolic tale about the callousness of capitalism; sometimes it’s a dirty, tense scare-fest or a bumbling detective tale. Director Jang maintains a consistent degree of intense focus throughout, and the lead actor is excellent, while Lee Byeong-gu constantly changes among savant prophet, charming oddball, and terrifying psycho in response to the narrative's fluidity across style, angle, and events. I think this is intentional, not a mistake, but it may prove quite confusing.
Designed to Confuse
It's plausible Jang aimed to unsettle spectators, mind. Similar to numerous Korean films from that era, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries on one side, and a profound fury about man’s inhumanity to man additionally. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a culture finding its global voice during emerging financial and social changes. One can look forward to witness the director's interpretation of the same story from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream without charge.
