Bugonia Can't Possibly Be Stranger Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Based On
Aegean surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in extremely strange movies. His unique screenplays are weird, like The Lobster, in which singletons need to find love or else be being turned into animals. When he adapts another creator's story, he often selects basis material that’s quite peculiar as well — stranger, possibly, than his cinematic take. Such was the situation with 2023’s Poor Things, a screen interpretation of Alasdair Gray’s gloriously perverse novel, an empowering, open-minded reimagining of Frankenstein. His film stands strong, but to some extent, his unique brand of oddity and the author's balance each other.
The Director's Latest Choice
The filmmaker's subsequent choice to interpret also came from far out in left field. The original work for Bugonia, his newest collaboration with leading actress Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean genre stew of sci-fi, black comedy, terror, irony, dark psychodrama, and cop drama. It’s a strange film not so much for what it’s about — although that's highly unconventional — rather because of the frenzied excess of its tone and narrative approach. It's an insane journey.
A New Wave of Filmmaking
It seems there was a creative spirit in South Korea at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to a boom of audacious in style, boundary-pushing movies from a new generation of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted the same year as Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those two crime masterpieces, but it’s got a lot in common with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! focuses on a troubled protagonist who captures a chemical-company executive, believing he’s an extraterrestrial from the planet Andromeda, plotting an attack. Early on, this concept unfolds as broad comedy, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a charmingly misguided figure. Alongside his innocent acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (the star) don plastic capes and ridiculous headgear encrusted with mental shields, and wield balm as a weapon. Yet they accomplish in abducting drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and bringing him to a secluded location, a makeshift laboratory he’s built in a former excavation in the mountains, where he keeps bees.
A Descent into Darkness
From this point, the story shifts abruptly into something more grotesque. Lee fastens Kang onto a crude contraption and subjects him to harm while spouting outlandish ideas, finally pushing the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; fueled entirely by the conviction of his elevated status, he is willing and able to subject himself terrifying trials just to try to escape and exert power over the clearly unwell protagonist. Simultaneously, a deeply unimpressive manhunt for the abductor gets underway. The cops’ witlessness and clumsiness is reminiscent of Memories of Murder, although it’s not so clearly intentional in a movie with plotting that appears haphazard and unrehearsed.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, fueled by its own crazed energy, trampling genre norms underfoot, even when you might expect it to find stability or falter. At moments it appears as a character study regarding psychological issues and pharmaceutical abuse; at other times it becomes a symbolic tale on the cruelty of capitalism; sometimes it’s a claustrophobic thriller or an incompetent police story. Director Jang applies equal measure of hysterical commitment to every bit, and the lead actor shines, while the protagonist continuously shifts among visionary, lovable weirdo, and dangerous lunatic in response to the film's ever-changing tone in tone, perspective, and plot. It seems that’s a feature, not a bug, but it might feel pretty disorienting.
Designed to Confuse
Jang probably consciously intended to confuse viewers, of course. Similar to numerous Korean films during that period, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries on one side, and a quite sincere anger about societal brutality additionally. It’s a roaring expression of a society finding its global voice amid new economic and social changes. One can look forward to observe Lanthimos' perspective on this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream at no cost.