Bugonia Can't Possibly Be Weirder Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Based On
Aegean surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on distinctly odd movies. His original stories defy convention, like The Lobster, in which single people are compelled to form relationships or face transformed into creatures. In adapting someone else’s work, he tends to draw from original works that’s rather eccentric too — odder, maybe, than his cinematic take. Such was the situation for last year's Poor Things, a screen interpretation of Alasdair Gray’s gloriously perverse novel, a feminist, open-minded take on Frankenstein. The director's adaptation stands strong, but to some extent, his unique brand of weirdness and the novelist's balance each other.
Lanthimos’ Next Pick
Lanthimos’ next pick for adaptation was likewise drawn from the fringes. The source text for Bugonia, his newest collaboration with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean mix of styles of sci-fi, black comedy, horror, irony, dark psychodrama, and cop drama. It's an unusual piece less because of its plot — even if that's far from normal — but due to the chaotic extremity of its atmosphere and directorial method. The film is a rollercoaster.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
It seems there was a certain energy within the country during that period. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, was included in a boom of daringly creative, boundary-pushing movies by emerging talents of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out the same year as the director's Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn't as acclaimed as those celebrated works, but there are similarities with them: extreme violence, dark comedy, pointed observations, and defying expectations.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who kidnaps a business tycoon, believing he’s a being hailing from Andromeda, intent on world domination. Initially, the premise is presented as slapstick humor, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (the actor Shin known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), comes across as an endearing eccentric. Alongside his innocent entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) wear slick rainwear and absurd helmets fitted with anti-mind-control devices, and use menthol rub in combat. Yet they accomplish in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (the performer) and taking him to a secluded location, a ramshackle house/lab he’s built at a mining site in a rural area, where he keeps bees.
A Descent into Darkness
Hereafter, the film veers quickly into ever more unsettling. Lee fastens Kang into a makeshift device and subjects him to harm while spouting bizarre plots, finally pushing the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; powered only by the belief of his elevated status, he is prepared and capable to subject himself horrifying ordeals just to try to escape and lord it over the clearly unwell kidnapper. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate manhunt to find the criminal commences. The cops’ witlessness and incompetence echoes Memories of Murder, even if it’s not so clearly intentional in a film with a narrative that comes off as rushed and improvised.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, driven by its wild momentum, trampling genre norms without pause, long after it seems likely it to either settle down or lose energy. Sometimes it seems like a serious story about mental health and excessive drug use; in parts it transforms into a symbolic tale regarding the indifference of the economic system; alternately it serves as a dirty, tense scare-fest or a sloppy cop movie. Director Jang applies equal measure of intense focus throughout, and the lead actor shines, while the character of Byeong-gu continuously shifts among visionary, charming oddball, and frightening madman depending on the film's ever-changing tone across style, angle, and events. It seems that’s a feature, not a bug, but it may prove rather bewildering.
Purposeful Chaos
Jang probably consciously intended to confuse viewers, of course. In line with various Korean films from that era, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for genre limits in one aspect, and a genuine outrage about societal brutality additionally. It’s a roaring expression of a culture finding its global voice during emerging financial and artistic liberties. One can look forward to see how Lanthimos views the original plot from a current U.S. standpoint — perhaps, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing at no cost.
