The New Film Can't Possibly Be Stranger Than the Sci-Fi Psychodrama It's Inspired By
Greek surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is known for highly unusual movies. The narratives he creates defy convention, like The Lobster, where single people need to find love or face being turned into animals. In adapting existing material, he tends to draw from basis material that’s rather eccentric too — odder, maybe, than his adaptation of it. That was the case for last year's Poor Things, a screen interpretation of Alasdair Gray’s gloriously perverse novel, an empowering, sex-positive spin on Frankenstein. His film stands strong, but partially, his specific style of weirdness and the author's cancel each other out.
His New Adaptation
The filmmaker's subsequent choice to interpret also came from the fringes. The basis for Bugonia, his recent team-up with star Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean genre stew of sci-fi, black comedy, horror, irony, dark psychodrama, and police procedural. It’s a strange film not so much for its plot — though that is highly unconventional — but due to the frenzied excess of its mood and storytelling style. The film is a rollercoaster.
The Burst of Korean Film
There likely existed a creative spirit within the country in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, was part of a boom of daringly creative, groundbreaking movies from fresh voices of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released alongside Bong’s Memories of Murder and the filmmaker'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: graphic brutality, dark comedy, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! is about an unhinged individual who kidnaps a business tycoon, thinking he's a being from the planet Andromeda, with plans to invade Earth. Initially, this concept unfolds as farce, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (the actor Shin from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a charmingly misguided figure. Alongside his childlike circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) sport black PVC ponchos and ridiculous headgear adorned with mental shields, and use ointment as a weapon. However, they manage in seizing inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and bringing him to the protagonist's isolated home, a dilapidated building he’s built at a mining site amid the hills, which houses his beehives.
Growing Tension
From this point, the story shifts abruptly into something more grotesque. The protagonist ties Kang into a makeshift device and inflicts pain while ranting bizarre plots, finally pushing the innocent partner away. Yet the captive is resilient; fueled entirely by the conviction of his elevated status, he can and will to subject himself awful experiences to attempt an exit and dominate the clearly unwell protagonist. At the same time, a comically inadequate police hunt for the abductor gets underway. The officers' incompetence and clumsiness recalls Memories of Murder, although the similarity might be accidental in a movie with a plot that comes off as rushed and unrehearsed.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, driven by its wild momentum, trampling genre norms without pause, long after it seems likely it to find stability or falter. At moments it appears as a character study regarding psychological issues and excessive drug use; in parts it transforms into a fantasy allegory regarding the indifference of capitalism; in turns it's a dirty, tense scare-fest or an incompetent police story. The filmmaker applies equal measure of intense focus to every bit, and the performer is excellent, even though the protagonist constantly changes from savant prophet, charming oddball, and terrifying psycho in response to the film's ever-changing tone in mood, viewpoint, and story. It seems it's by design, not a bug, but it might feel pretty disorienting.
Purposeful Chaos
It's plausible Jang aimed to confuse viewers, mind. In line with various Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries partly, and a genuine outrage about societal brutality in another respect. It’s a roaring expression of a culture finding its global voice during emerging financial and artistic liberties. One can look forward to observe the director's interpretation of the same story from contemporary America — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream at no cost.
