The New Film Isn't Likely to Be More Bizarre Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Inspired By
Greek avant-garde filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on extremely strange movies. The narratives he creates are weird, for instance The Lobster, where single people need to find love or else be transformed into creatures. In adapting another creator's story, he frequently picks basis material that’s rather eccentric too — odder, perhaps, than the version he creates. Such was the situation regarding the recent Poor Things, a film version of author Alasdair Gray's wonderfully twisted novel, an empowering, sex-positive take on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is good, but to some extent, his particular flavor of eccentricity and the author's neutralize one another.
The Director's Latest Choice
His following selection to interpret also came from unexpected territory. The original work for Bugonia, his latest project alongside acclaimed performer Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean fusion of sci-fi, dark humor, terror, satire, dark psychodrama, and police procedural. It’s a strange film not primarily due to what it’s about — even if that's decidedly unusual — rather because of the chaotic extremity of its atmosphere and narrative approach. It’s a wild, wild ride.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
There likely existed a creative spirit across Korea during that period. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, was included in a surge of stylistically bold, innovative movies from a new generation of filmmakers like 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: graphic brutality, dark comedy, sharp societal critique, and genre subversion.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! revolves around an unhinged individual who captures a business tycoon, thinking he's a being from the planet Andromeda, plotting an attack. At first, this concept is presented as slapstick humor, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), comes across as a charmingly misguided figure. Alongside his childlike acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (Hwang Jung-min) sport black PVC ponchos and ridiculous headgear encrusted with anti-mind-control devices, and employ menthol rub in combat. Yet they accomplish in seizing drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (the performer) and bringing him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a makeshift laboratory assembled at a mining site amid the hills, home to his apiary.
Shifting Tones
Moving forward, the narrative turns into something more grotesque. Lee fastens Kang onto a crude contraption and subjects him to harm while spouting outlandish ideas, ultimately forcing his kind girlfriend away. But Kang is no victim; fueled entirely by the belief of his elevated status, he can and will to endure horrifying ordeals to attempt an exit and dominate the mentally unstable protagonist. Meanwhile, a comically inadequate manhunt for the abductor commences. The officers' incompetence and lack of skill is reminiscent of Memories of Murder, although it’s not so clearly intentional in a movie with a narrative that seems slapdash and improvised.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, propelled by its own crazed energy, trampling genre norms along the way, well past it seems likely it to find stability or run out of steam. At moments it appears to be a drama regarding psychological issues and pharmaceutical abuse; at other times it becomes a metaphorical narrative about the callousness of corporate culture; alternately it serves as a grimy basement horror or a sloppy cop movie. Jang Joon-hwan applies equal measure of intense focus throughout, and Shin Ha-kyun delivers a standout performance, even though the character of Byeong-gu keeps morphing from savant prophet, endearing eccentric, and dangerous lunatic as required by the narrative's fluidity in mood, viewpoint, and story. One could argue it's by design, not a flaw, but it may prove rather bewildering.
Intentional Disorientation
Jang probably consciously intended to unsettle spectators, of course. Like so many Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries on one side, and a quite sincere anger about man’s inhumanity to man on the other. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a culture establishing its international presence amid new economic and social changes. One can look forward to witness Lanthimos' perspective on the original plot from contemporary America — arguably, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online without charge.
