The New Film Can't Possibly Be Stranger Than the Sci-Fi Psychological Drama It's Based On
Aegean avant-garde filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has built a reputation on highly unusual movies. His unique screenplays are weird, such as The Lobster, a film where singletons must partner up or risk being turned into animals. Whenever he interprets another creator's story, he frequently picks basis material that’s pretty odd too — odder, maybe, than his cinematic take. Such was the situation regarding the recent Poor Things, a film version of Alasdair Gray’s delightfully aberrant novel, a feminist, liberated reimagining of Frankenstein. The director's adaptation stands strong, but in a way, his unique brand of oddity and Gray’s balance each other.
Lanthimos’ Next Pick
His following selection for adaptation also came from the fringes. The original work for Bugonia, his newest project alongside leading actress Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a confounding Korean fusion of sci-fi, black comedy, horror, satire, psychological thriller, and police procedural. It’s a strange film not so much for its plot — although that's decidedly unusual — but for the wild intensity of its tone and directorial method. It's an insane journey.
A New Wave of Filmmaking
It seems there was a certain energy across 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, boundary-pushing movies from a new generation of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It came out 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, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and defying expectations.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! is about a disturbed young man who kidnaps a corporate CEO, convinced he is an extraterrestrial from the planet Andromeda, with plans to invade Earth. At first, the premise unfolds as slapstick humor, and the young man, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a lovably deluded fool. He and his naive circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) sport plastic capes and bizarre masks fitted with psyche-protection gear, and wield menthol rub in combat. But they do succeed in abducting inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (Baek Yun-shik) and bringing him to a secluded location, a makeshift laboratory he’s built at a mining site in the mountains, which houses his beehives.
A Descent into Darkness
Hereafter, the story shifts abruptly into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang into a makeshift device and physically abuses him while declaiming absurd conspiracy theories, finally pushing the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; powered only by the certainty of his elevated status, he is prepared and capable to subject himself awful experiences in hopes of breaking free and exert power over the clearly unwell younger man. Meanwhile, a comically inadequate police hunt for the kidnapper gets underway. The detectives' foolishness and incompetence echoes Memories of Murder, though it may not be as deliberate in a movie with plotting that comes off as rushed and spontaneous.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! plunges forward relentlessly, fueled by its wild momentum, breaking rules underfoot, even when you might expect it to calm down or run out of steam. Occasionally it feels to be a drama about mental health and excessive drug use; sometimes it’s a metaphorical narrative on the cruelty of capitalism; in turns it's a grimy basement horror or an incompetent police story. The filmmaker applies equal measure of feverish dedication in all scenes, and Shin Ha-kyun is excellent, although the protagonist continuously shifts between visionary, charming oddball, and frightening madman as required by the narrative's fluidity across style, angle, and events. One could argue this is intentional, not a flaw, but it may prove rather bewildering.
Intentional Disorientation
The director likely meant to confuse viewers, mind. Like so many Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by an exuberant rejection for genre limits partly, and a genuine outrage about societal brutality additionally. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a society finding its global voice amid new economic and artistic liberties. It promises to be intriguing to see the director's interpretation of the original plot from contemporary America — perhaps, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online for free.
