The New Film Couldn't Be Weirder Than the Science Fiction Psychodrama It's Based On
Greek surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is known for extremely strange movies. His original stories are weird, such as The Lobster, in which single people must partner up or else be changed into beasts. When he adapts existing material, he tends to draw from original works that’s rather eccentric too — odder, maybe, than the version he creates. That was the case with 2023’s Poor Things, a screen interpretation of the novel by Alasdair Gray delightfully aberrant novel, a pro-female, open-minded spin on Frankenstein. The director's adaptation stands strong, but to some extent, his particular flavor of weirdness and the author's cancel each other out.
The Director's Latest Choice
Lanthimos’ next pick to bring to screen also came from far out in left field. The basis for Bugonia, his newest collaboration with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, was 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a perplexing Korean mix of styles of science fiction, dark humor, horror, satire, dark psychodrama, and cop drama. It’s a strange film not so much for its subject matter — although that's far from normal — but for the chaotic extremity of its atmosphere and narrative approach. It's an insane journey.
A Korean Cinema Explosion
It seems there was something in the air within the country at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to a surge of stylistically bold, boundary-pushing movies by emerging talents of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted concurrently with the director's Memories of Murder and the filmmaker's Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those celebrated works, but there are similarities with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and defying expectations.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! is about a troubled protagonist who abducts a business tycoon, believing he’s an alien from the planet Andromeda, plotting an attack. Initially, this concept unfolds as farce, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (the actor Shin known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like a lovably deluded fool. Alongside his naive entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) sport black PVC ponchos and absurd helmets adorned with psyche-protection gear, and wield ointment in combat. However, they manage in kidnapping drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and bringing him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a dilapidated building assembled in a former excavation in the mountains, home to his apiary.
Growing Tension
From this point, the film veers quickly into increasingly disturbing. Byeong-gu straps Kang onto a crude contraption and physically abuses him while declaiming absurd conspiracy theories, ultimately forcing the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; fueled entirely by the certainty of his innate dominance, he can and will to subject himself horrifying ordeals to attempt an exit and lord it over the clearly unwell kidnapper. Meanwhile, a comically inadequate investigation to find the criminal gets underway. The cops’ witlessness and lack of skill recalls Memories of Murder, though the similarity might be accidental in a film with a narrative that seems slapdash and spontaneous.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, fueled by its manic force, trampling genre norms without pause, even when it seems likely it to calm down or run out of steam. At moments it appears as a character study about mental health and pharmaceutical abuse; in parts it transforms into a fantasy allegory about the callousness of capitalism; in turns it's a claustrophobic thriller or an incompetent police story. Director Jang maintains a consistent degree of feverish dedication throughout, and Shin Ha-kyun delivers a standout performance, even though Lee Byeong-gu continuously shifts from visionary, lovable weirdo, and frightening madman as required by the movie’s constant shifts across style, angle, and events. It seems this is intentional, not a mistake, but it may prove rather bewildering.
Designed to Confuse
It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, indeed. In line with various Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is powered by a joyful, extreme defiance for artistic rules on one side, and a quite sincere anger about man’s inhumanity to man on the other. It stands as a loud proclamation of a nation gaining worldwide recognition alongside fresh commercial and artistic liberties. It will be fascinating to see Lanthimos' perspective on this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — arguably, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream without charge.
