Bugonia Couldn't Be Stranger Than the Science Fiction Psychodrama It's Inspired By
Aegean surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on extremely strange movies. His original stories defy convention, for instance The Lobster, in which singletons must partner up or risk transformed into creatures. Whenever he interprets someone else’s work, he tends to draw from source material that’s rather eccentric as well — stranger, possibly, than the version he creates. Such was the situation for last year's Poor Things, a film version of author Alasdair Gray's wonderfully twisted novel, an empowering, liberated reimagining of Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is effective, but to some extent, his specific style of weirdness and Gray’s cancel each other out.
His New Adaptation
The filmmaker's subsequent choice to interpret was likewise drawn from the fringes. The original work for Bugonia, his recent team-up with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, was 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean genre stew of science fiction, dark humor, terror, irony, dark psychodrama, and cop drama. It's an unusual piece not so much for its plot — although that's far from normal — rather because of the chaotic extremity of its tone and narrative approach. The film is a rollercoaster.
A New Wave of Filmmaking
It seems there was something in the air across Korea at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, was included in a boom of daringly creative, boundary-pushing movies by emerging talents of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out the same year as Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those iconic films, but there are similarities with them: extreme violence, dark comedy, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! is about a troubled protagonist who captures a business tycoon, convinced he is an alien from the planet Andromeda, intent on world domination. Early on, 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), comes across as a charmingly misguided figure. Together with his innocent entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) wear plastic capes and absurd helmets adorned with mental shields, and employ ointment for defense. But they do succeed in abducting intoxicated executive Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and bringing him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a ramshackle house/lab constructed on an old mine amid the hills, where he keeps bees.
Shifting Tones
Hereafter, the film veers quickly into ever more unsettling. Byeong-gu straps Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and subjects him to harm while ranting outlandish ideas, eventually driving the gentle Su-ni away. However, Kang isn't helpless; driven solely by the belief of his own superiority, he is prepared and capable to endure horrifying ordeals just to try to escape and lord it over the disturbed younger man. At the same time, a notably inept police hunt for the abductor gets underway. The detectives' foolishness and incompetence echoes Memories of Murder, although it may not be as deliberate within a story with plotting that seems slapdash and unrehearsed.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, fueled by its manic force, breaking rules without pause, even when it seems likely it to calm down or falter. Occasionally it feels to be a drama on instability and overmedication; at other times it becomes a fantasy allegory on the cruelty of corporate culture; alternately it serves as a dirty, tense scare-fest or an incompetent police story. The filmmaker brings the same level of hysterical commitment to every bit, and Shin Ha-kyun shines, while the character of Byeong-gu continuously shifts between visionary, charming oddball, and frightening madman as required by the movie’s constant shifts across style, angle, and events. I think that’s a feature, not a mistake, but it might feel rather bewildering.
Purposeful Chaos
It's plausible Jang aimed to unsettle spectators, mind. Similar to numerous Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by a joyful, extreme defiance for genre limits in one aspect, and a profound fury about man’s inhumanity to man additionally. It’s a roaring expression of a nation finding its global voice amid new economic and artistic liberties. It will be fascinating to witness the director's interpretation of this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — perhaps, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream without charge.
