The New Film Couldn't Be Stranger Than the Science Fiction Psychodrama It's Inspired By
Greek surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos is known for extremely strange movies. His original stories defy convention, like The Lobster, a film where unattached individuals need to find love or else be changed into beasts. In adapting existing material, he tends to draw from original works that’s pretty odd also — more bizarre, maybe, than the version he creates. Such was the situation regarding the recent Poor Things, a film version of Alasdair Gray’s wonderfully twisted novel, a pro-female, liberated take on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version is good, but in a way, his unique brand of oddity and Gray’s balance each other.
The Director's Latest Choice
The filmmaker's subsequent choice for adaptation was likewise drawn from far out in left field. The original work for Bugonia, his recent project alongside star Emma Stone, comes from 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a bewildering Korean mix of styles of sci-fi, black comedy, horror, satire, psychological thriller, and police procedural. It's an unusual piece less because of what it’s about — although that's highly unconventional — but due to the chaotic extremity of its atmosphere and narrative approach. The film is a rollercoaster.
The Burst of Korean Film
There likely existed a certain energy in South Korea at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, the work of Jang Joon-hwan, belonged to an explosion of audacious in style, innovative movies by emerging talents of filmmakers such as Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released the same year as the director's Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those iconic films, but it’s got a lot in common with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
The Plot Unfolds
Save the Green Planet! revolves around a disturbed young man who kidnaps a chemical-company executive, thinking he's an extraterrestrial from the planet Andromeda, with plans to invade Earth. At first, the premise is presented as broad comedy, and the protagonist, Lee Byeong-gu (Shin Ha-kyun known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as an endearing eccentric. Alongside his innocent entertainer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) wear plastic capes and ridiculous headgear encrusted with mental shields, and employ menthol rub in combat. Yet they accomplish in seizing inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (the performer) and bringing him to Byeong-gu’s remote property, a ramshackle house/lab he’s built in a former excavation in the mountains, which houses his beehives.
Shifting Tones
Moving forward, 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 bizarre plots, finally pushing his kind girlfriend away. But Kang is no victim; powered only by the certainty of his own superiority, he is prepared and capable to subject himself horrifying ordeals in hopes of breaking free and exert power over the mentally unstable kidnapper. Simultaneously, a notably inept manhunt to find the criminal begins. The detectives' foolishness and lack of skill echoes Memories of Murder, though it’s not so clearly intentional in a film with plotting that comes off as rushed and unrehearsed.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, driven by its manic force, trampling genre norms without pause, even when it seems likely it to find stability or falter. Occasionally it feels like a serious story on instability and overmedication; at other times it becomes a fantasy allegory about the callousness of the economic system; sometimes it’s a dirty, tense scare-fest or a sloppy cop movie. Jang Joon-hwan brings the same level of feverish dedication to every bit, and Shin Ha-kyun shines, while Lee Byeong-gu continuously shifts between visionary, endearing eccentric, and terrifying psycho in response to the movie’s constant shifts across style, angle, and events. One could argue that’s a feature, not a bug, but it might feel rather bewildering.
Designed to Confuse
Jang probably consciously intended to confuse viewers, of course. Similar to numerous Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! draws energy from an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries on one side, and a genuine outrage about societal brutality additionally. It’s a roaring expression of a culture establishing its international presence amid new economic and artistic liberties. One can look forward to see Lanthimos' perspective on this narrative from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online without charge.
