Bugonia Can't Possibly Be More Bizarre Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Based On
Aegean surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in highly unusual movies. His original stories veer into the bizarre, such as The Lobster, where unattached individuals are compelled to form relationships or risk transformed into creatures. When he adapts existing material, he frequently picks source material that’s quite peculiar as well — stranger, perhaps, than the version he creates. Such was the situation for last year's Poor Things, an adaptation of the novel by Alasdair Gray wonderfully twisted novel, an empowering, open-minded take on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is good, but in a way, his particular flavor of weirdness and the novelist's cancel each other out.
The Director's Latest Choice
Lanthimos’ next pick to bring to screen was likewise drawn from unexpected territory. The source text for Bugonia, his newest collaboration with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, was 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean genre stew of science fiction, dark humor, terror, satire, psychological thriller, and cop drama. It's an unusual piece less because of what it’s about — even if that's highly unconventional — rather because of the frenzied excess of its atmosphere and storytelling style. The film is a rollercoaster.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
It seems there was a creative spirit in South Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to a boom of audacious in style, innovative movies from fresh voices of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted the same year as the director's Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those two crime masterpieces, but it’s got a lot in common with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! focuses on a troubled protagonist who captures a corporate CEO, believing he’s an extraterrestrial hailing from Andromeda, plotting an attack. Early on, that idea is presented as slapstick humor, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a lovably deluded fool. Together with his naive acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (the star) sport plastic capes and ridiculous headgear encrusted with anti-mind-control devices, and employ balm in combat. However, they manage in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (the performer) and transporting him to the protagonist's isolated home, a makeshift laboratory assembled on an old mine amid the hills, home to his apiary.
A Descent into Darkness
Moving forward, the film veers quickly into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang into a makeshift device and inflicts pain while ranting outlandish ideas, ultimately forcing his kind girlfriend away. Yet the captive is resilient; driven solely by the certainty of his elevated status, he is willing and able to endure horrifying ordeals just to try to escape and exert power over the disturbed protagonist. At the same time, a deeply unimpressive investigation for the abductor commences. The officers' incompetence and incompetence recalls Memories of Murder, although it’s not so clearly intentional within a story with plotting that comes off as rushed and spontaneous.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, fueled by its manic force, trampling genre norms along the way, even when it seems likely it to either settle down or lose energy. Sometimes it seems as a character study on instability and excessive drug use; in parts it transforms into a metaphorical narrative on the cruelty of the economic system; sometimes it’s a claustrophobic thriller or a bumbling detective tale. The filmmaker maintains a consistent degree of intense focus to every bit, and Shin Ha-kyun is excellent, while Lee Byeong-gu keeps morphing between visionary, charming oddball, and terrifying psycho as required by the film's ever-changing tone in tone, perspective, and plot. One could argue that’s a feature, not a mistake, but it might feel pretty disorienting.
Designed to Confuse
Jang probably consciously intended to unsettle spectators, indeed. Like so many Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is powered by an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries partly, and a profound fury about societal brutality on the other. It stands as a loud proclamation of a society finding its global voice amid new economic and social changes. One can look forward to observe Lanthimos' perspective on the same story from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing for free.
