Bugonia Can't Possibly Be More Bizarre Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Inspired By
Aegean surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on distinctly odd movies. His original stories defy convention, such as The Lobster, where unattached individuals are compelled to form relationships or face transformed into creatures. When he adapts existing material, he tends to draw from basis material that’s rather eccentric too — odder, maybe, than his cinematic take. This proved true for last year's Poor Things, a screen interpretation of Alasdair Gray’s gloriously perverse novel, a pro-female, liberated take on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is good, but partially, his unique brand of eccentricity and the author's neutralize one another.
The Director's Latest Choice
Lanthimos’ next pick to bring to screen also came from the fringes. The basis for Bugonia, his recent team-up with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, was 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 a strange film not primarily due to what it’s about — though that is decidedly unusual — rather because of the frenzied excess of its mood and narrative approach. It's an insane journey.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
It seems there was a certain energy across Korea at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, was part of a surge of daringly creative, boundary-pushing movies from a new generation of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out alongside the director's Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn't as acclaimed as those two crime masterpieces, but it shares many traits with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, pointed observations, and genre subversion.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who abducts a corporate CEO, thinking he's an alien originating in another galaxy, with plans to invade Earth. Early on, the premise 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), appears as a lovably deluded fool. Alongside his childlike acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) wear slick rainwear and ridiculous headgear fitted with psyche-protection gear, and employ balm in combat. However, they manage in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and transporting him to the protagonist's isolated home, a dilapidated building assembled in a former excavation in the mountains, home to his apiary.
Growing Tension
From this point, the narrative turns into something more grotesque. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and physically abuses him while declaiming absurd conspiracy theories, finally pushing the innocent partner away. But Kang is no victim; powered only by the certainty of his elevated status, he can and will to endure awful experiences to attempt an exit and dominate the clearly unwell kidnapper. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate manhunt to find the criminal commences. The officers' incompetence and incompetence echoes Memories of Murder, although it may not be as deliberate in a film with a narrative that seems slapdash and spontaneous.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, fueled by its wild momentum, trampling genre norms underfoot, long after it seems likely it to find stability or falter. At moments it appears like a serious story about mental health and excessive drug use; at other times it becomes a symbolic tale regarding the indifference of corporate culture; sometimes it’s a claustrophobic thriller or a bumbling detective tale. The filmmaker applies equal measure of intense focus to every bit, and the lead actor delivers a standout performance, although the protagonist continuously shifts between wise seer, lovable weirdo, and frightening madman in response to the narrative's fluidity across style, angle, and events. One could argue it's by design, not a mistake, but it might feel quite confusing.
Intentional Disorientation
The director likely meant to disorient his audience, of course. In line with various Korean films during that period, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for artistic rules in one aspect, and a profound fury about societal brutality on the other. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a society establishing its international presence alongside fresh commercial and social changes. It promises to be intriguing to see the director's interpretation of the same story through a modern Western lens — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream at no cost.
