The New Film Couldn't Be More Bizarre Than the Science Fiction Psychological Drama It's Based On
Aegean avant-garde filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on highly unusual movies. His original stories veer into the bizarre, like The Lobster, in which unattached individuals must partner up or else be transformed into creatures. When he adapts another creator's story, he frequently picks source material that’s rather eccentric as well — stranger, maybe, than his adaptation of it. Such was the situation with 2023’s Poor Things, a screen interpretation of author Alasdair Gray's wonderfully twisted novel, a feminist, liberated take on Frankenstein. His film stands strong, but to some extent, his unique brand of weirdness and Gray’s neutralize one another.
Lanthimos’ Next Pick
His following selection for adaptation also came from unexpected territory. The original work for Bugonia, his latest project alongside leading actress Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean fusion of science fiction, black comedy, horror, irony, dark psychodrama, and cop drama. It’s a strange film less because of its subject matter — even if that's highly unconventional — rather because of the chaotic extremity of its tone and directorial method. The film is a rollercoaster.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
There must have been a creative spirit in South Korea at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan, was part of an explosion of stylistically bold, groundbreaking movies by emerging talents of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released alongside the director'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 shares many traits with them: extreme violence, dark comedy, sharp societal critique, and bending rules.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who captures a business tycoon, thinking he's a being originating in another galaxy, with plans to invade Earth. At first, that idea unfolds as broad comedy, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a charmingly misguided figure. He and his naive entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) wear slick rainwear and absurd helmets adorned with mental shields, and wield menthol rub as a weapon. But they do succeed in abducting inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and bringing him to a secluded location, a ramshackle house/lab assembled at a mining site amid the hills, which houses his beehives.
Shifting Tones
From this point, the story shifts abruptly into increasingly disturbing. The protagonist ties Kang onto a crude contraption and subjects him to harm while spouting bizarre plots, finally pushing the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; driven solely by the conviction of his innate dominance, he can and will to subject himself awful experiences to attempt an exit and exert power over the disturbed younger man. Simultaneously, a comically inadequate manhunt for the kidnapper gets underway. The detectives' foolishness and incompetence recalls Memories of Murder, even if it may not be as deliberate in a movie with a narrative that appears haphazard and spontaneous.
Constant Shifts
Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, driven by its own crazed energy, defying conventions without pause, even when you might expect it to calm down or falter. Occasionally it feels as a character study about mental health and pharmaceutical abuse; in parts it transforms into a symbolic tale about the callousness of corporate culture; alternately it serves as a dirty, tense scare-fest or an incompetent police story. Director Jang applies equal measure of hysterical commitment throughout, and the lead actor is excellent, even though the character of Byeong-gu constantly changes among savant prophet, endearing eccentric, and dangerous lunatic in response to the movie’s constant shifts in tone, perspective, and plot. I think this is intentional, not a bug, but it might feel pretty disorienting.
Purposeful Chaos
It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, of course. Like so many Korean films during that period, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a joyful, extreme defiance for artistic rules in one aspect, and a profound fury about man’s inhumanity to man on the other. It stands as a loud proclamation of a culture gaining worldwide recognition during emerging financial and artistic liberties. It will be fascinating to observe how Lanthimos views the original plot from a current U.S. standpoint — perhaps, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream for free.
