Bugonia Isn't Likely to Be Stranger Than the Science Fiction Psychological Drama It's Inspired By
Greek surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is known for distinctly odd movies. His unique screenplays veer into the bizarre, for instance The Lobster, where unattached individuals are compelled to form relationships or face being turned into animals. When he adapts another creator's story, he frequently picks basis material that’s rather eccentric too — odder, maybe, than his adaptation of it. That was the case regarding the recent Poor Things, a screen interpretation of Alasdair Gray’s wonderfully twisted novel, an empowering, open-minded take on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version stands strong, but in a way, his specific style of weirdness and the author's cancel each other out.
The Director's Latest Choice
His following selection to bring to screen also came from unexpected territory. The original work for Bugonia, his newest collaboration with star Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean genre stew of science fiction, dark humor, terror, satire, dark psychodrama, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece not so much for what it’s about — though that is decidedly unusual — but due to the wild intensity of its mood and directorial method. The film is a rollercoaster.
A New Wave of Filmmaking
There likely existed a certain energy across Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, was included in a surge of stylistically bold, groundbreaking movies from fresh voices of filmmakers like 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 on the same level as those celebrated works, but it shares many traits with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, pointed observations, and defying expectations.
The Story Develops
Save the Green Planet! focuses on a disturbed young man who captures a business tycoon, convinced he is an alien hailing from Andromeda, intent on world domination. At first, the premise is presented as farce, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like a lovably deluded fool. Together with his innocent circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) sport black PVC ponchos and ridiculous headgear encrusted with anti-mind-control devices, and wield ointment for defense. Yet they accomplish in kidnapping intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (the performer) and transporting him to the protagonist's isolated home, a ramshackle house/lab assembled at a mining site in a rural area, where he keeps bees.
Shifting Tones
From this point, the narrative turns into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang onto a crude contraption and physically abuses him while ranting absurd conspiracy theories, ultimately forcing the innocent partner away. But Kang is no victim; powered only by the certainty of his innate dominance, he can and will to undergo horrifying ordeals to attempt an exit and exert power over the clearly unwell kidnapper. At the same time, a comically inadequate manhunt for the kidnapper begins. The officers' incompetence and incompetence recalls Memories of Murder, although the similarity might be accidental within a story with a narrative that appears haphazard and spontaneous.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, driven by its own crazed energy, trampling genre norms underfoot, well past you might expect it to find stability or lose energy. Occasionally it feels as a character study on instability and excessive drug use; in parts it transforms into a fantasy allegory regarding the indifference of corporate culture; sometimes it’s a grimy basement horror or an incompetent police story. Jang Joon-hwan applies equal measure of hysterical commitment throughout, and the lead actor is excellent, even though the protagonist constantly changes between savant prophet, lovable weirdo, and dangerous lunatic as required by the movie’s constant shifts across style, angle, and events. I think this is intentional, not a bug, but it can be quite confusing.
Purposeful Chaos
Jang probably consciously intended to confuse viewers, indeed. Like so many Korean films during that period, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for stylistic boundaries partly, and a profound fury about societal brutality additionally. It stands as a loud proclamation of a culture establishing its international presence during emerging financial and artistic liberties. One can look forward to see the director's interpretation of the same story from contemporary America — possibly, an opposite perspective.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing without charge.
