Bugonia Can't Possibly Be Stranger Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Adapted From
Greek surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on distinctly odd movies. The narratives he creates veer into the bizarre, for instance The Lobster, a film where single people are compelled to form relationships or else be being turned into animals. Whenever he interprets existing material, he frequently picks basis material that’s quite peculiar too — odder, maybe, than his cinematic take. That was the case for last year's Poor Things, a screen interpretation of author Alasdair Gray's wonderfully twisted novel, a pro-female, sex-positive take on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version stands strong, but in a way, his particular flavor of oddity and the author's neutralize one another.
The Director's Latest Choice
The filmmaker's subsequent choice for adaptation also came from unexpected territory. The source text for Bugonia, his latest project alongside leading actress Emma Stone, was 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean genre stew of sci-fi, black comedy, terror, irony, psychological thriller, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece not so much for its subject matter — even if that's far from normal — but for the frenzied excess of its tone and directorial method. It’s a wild, wild ride.
The Burst of Korean Film
There likely existed a certain energy within the country in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, was included in a surge of daringly creative, boundary-pushing movies from fresh voices of filmmakers such as Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released concurrently with Bong’s Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those iconic films, but it’s got a lot in common with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
The Story Develops
Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who abducts a corporate CEO, thinking he's an alien hailing from Andromeda, intent on world domination. Initially, that idea is presented as broad comedy, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (the actor Shin known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like an endearing eccentric. He and his childlike acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) wear black PVC ponchos and ridiculous headgear encrusted with psyche-protection gear, and employ ointment for defense. Yet they accomplish in abducting inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (the performer) and bringing him to a secluded location, a ramshackle house/lab he’s built in a former excavation in the mountains, where he keeps bees.
Growing Tension
Moving forward, the story shifts abruptly into ever more unsettling. The protagonist ties Kang into a makeshift device and physically abuses him while ranting outlandish ideas, ultimately forcing the gentle Su-ni away. But Kang is no victim; powered only by the belief of his innate dominance, he is prepared and capable to undergo terrifying trials just to try to escape and dominate the disturbed kidnapper. Meanwhile, a comically inadequate police hunt for the abductor gets underway. The officers' incompetence and clumsiness is reminiscent of 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! plunges forward relentlessly, fueled by its own crazed energy, defying conventions along the way, long after you might expect it to find stability or falter. Sometimes it seems like a serious story on instability and excessive drug use; sometimes it’s a symbolic tale regarding the indifference of corporate culture; sometimes it’s a claustrophobic thriller or an incompetent police story. The filmmaker applies equal measure of intense focus to every bit, and the performer delivers a standout performance, even though the character of Byeong-gu keeps morphing among savant prophet, endearing eccentric, and terrifying psycho as required by the film's ever-changing tone across style, angle, and events. I think this is intentional, not a bug, but it might feel rather bewildering.
Designed to Confuse
It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, indeed. Like so many Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for stylistic boundaries on one side, and a genuine outrage about human cruelty additionally. It’s a roaring expression of a culture finding its global voice alongside fresh commercial and social changes. It promises to be intriguing to observe Lanthimos' perspective on this narrative through a modern Western lens — perhaps, an opposite perspective.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream without charge.
