Bugonia Can't Possibly Be Stranger Than the Science Fiction Psychological Drama It's Inspired By
Aegean avant-garde filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on extremely strange movies. His original stories defy convention, such as The Lobster, in which unattached individuals must partner up or face transformed into creatures. In adapting existing material, he tends to draw from source material that’s quite peculiar as well — stranger, possibly, than the version he creates. This proved true for last year's Poor Things, a screen interpretation of the novel by Alasdair Gray gloriously perverse novel, an empowering, liberated spin on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is effective, but partially, his unique brand of oddity and the novelist's neutralize one another.
His New Adaptation
The filmmaker's subsequent choice to bring to screen also came from far out in left field. The basis for Bugonia, his recent collaboration with leading actress Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a perplexing Korean mix of styles of sci-fi, black comedy, horror, irony, dark psychodrama, and police procedural. It’s a strange film not so much for its subject matter — even if that's highly unconventional — rather because of the wild intensity of its mood and narrative approach. The film is a rollercoaster.
A New Wave of Filmmaking
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 a surge of stylistically bold, groundbreaking movies by emerging talents of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released concurrently with the director's Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn't as acclaimed as those iconic films, but there are similarities with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, pointed observations, and genre subversion.
The Story Develops
Save the Green Planet! focuses on a troubled protagonist who kidnaps a corporate CEO, thinking he's an alien from the planet Andromeda, with plans to invade Earth. At first, this concept is presented as farce, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a lovably deluded fool. Alongside his innocent acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) sport plastic capes and bizarre masks adorned with mental shields, and use ointment as a weapon. But they do succeed in abducting drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and taking him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a makeshift laboratory he’s built at a mining site in a rural area, which houses his beehives.
Shifting Tones
From this point, the narrative turns into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and physically abuses him while ranting outlandish ideas, eventually driving his kind girlfriend away. Yet the captive is resilient; powered only by the belief of his elevated status, he can and will to subject himself horrifying ordeals to attempt an exit and exert power over the disturbed younger man. At the same time, a comically inadequate manhunt for the kidnapper begins. The detectives' foolishness and lack of skill echoes Memories of Murder, even if it may not be as deliberate within a story with a narrative that appears haphazard and improvised.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, fueled by its manic force, trampling genre norms without pause, even when one would assume it to either settle down or falter. Sometimes it seems like a serious story regarding psychological issues and excessive drug use; in parts it transforms into a fantasy allegory on the cruelty of corporate culture; in turns it's a dirty, tense scare-fest or a sloppy cop movie. Jang Joon-hwan brings the same level of hysterical commitment throughout, and the performer delivers a standout performance, while the protagonist constantly changes from savant prophet, lovable weirdo, and frightening madman depending on the movie’s constant shifts in mood, viewpoint, and story. It seems this is intentional, not a flaw, 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! is powered by an exuberant rejection for genre limits on one side, and a quite sincere anger about societal brutality on the other. It’s a roaring expression of a nation establishing its international presence alongside fresh commercial and social changes. It will be fascinating to observe how Lanthimos views this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — perhaps, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online at no cost.
