The New Film Isn't Likely to Be Stranger Than the Sci-Fi Psychodrama It's Adapted From
Greek surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in extremely strange movies. The narratives he creates veer into the bizarre, for instance The Lobster, a film where single people must partner up or face being turned into animals. Whenever he interprets another creator's story, he frequently picks source material that’s pretty odd also — more bizarre, perhaps, than his adaptation of it. This proved true with 2023’s Poor Things, a film version of Alasdair Gray’s gloriously perverse novel, a pro-female, liberated reimagining of Frankenstein. The director's adaptation is good, but to some extent, his unique brand of eccentricity and Gray’s cancel each other out.
Lanthimos’ Next Pick
The filmmaker's subsequent choice to bring to screen also came from the fringes. The original work for Bugonia, his newest collaboration with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a perplexing Korean fusion of sci-fi, dark humor, terror, irony, psychological thriller, and police procedural. The movie is odd less because of its plot — although that's highly unconventional — but due to the chaotic extremity of its tone and storytelling style. The film is a rollercoaster.
The Burst of Korean Film
There likely existed something in the air within the country at the start of the millennium. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, was included in a boom of daringly creative, groundbreaking movies from fresh voices of filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted concurrently with Bong’s Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! isn’t on the same level as those celebrated works, but there are similarities with them: graphic brutality, morbid humor, bitter social commentary, and defying expectations.
Narrative Progression
Save the Green Planet! revolves around an unhinged individual who abducts a chemical-company executive, convinced he is a being originating in another galaxy, plotting an attack. Early on, that idea unfolds as slapstick humor, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), seems like a lovably deluded fool. Together with his naive acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) sport black PVC ponchos and ridiculous headgear adorned with mental shields, and use menthol rub for defense. But they do succeed in abducting drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (the performer) and bringing him to a secluded location, a makeshift laboratory constructed in a former excavation in a rural area, home to his apiary.
Shifting Tones
From this point, the film veers quickly into increasingly disturbing. Lee fastens Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and inflicts pain while spouting bizarre plots, finally pushing the innocent partner away. But Kang is no victim; driven solely by the conviction of his elevated status, he is willing and able to undergo horrifying ordeals in hopes of breaking free and dominate the disturbed protagonist. At the same time, a notably inept manhunt for the kidnapper gets underway. The officers' incompetence and incompetence is reminiscent of Memories of Murder, although the similarity might be accidental within a story with a narrative that comes off as rushed and improvised.
A Frenetic Journey
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, driven by its own crazed energy, trampling genre norms underfoot, long after you might expect it to find stability or lose energy. At moments it appears like a serious story about mental health and pharmaceutical abuse; in parts it transforms into a metaphorical narrative about the callousness of capitalism; alternately it serves as a grimy basement horror or a bumbling detective tale. Jang Joon-hwan maintains a consistent degree of intense focus to every bit, and the performer is excellent, although Lee Byeong-gu constantly changes between wise seer, charming oddball, and dangerous lunatic as required by the movie’s constant shifts across style, angle, and events. I think it's by design, not a mistake, but it may prove quite confusing.
Purposeful Chaos
Jang probably consciously intended to confuse viewers, indeed. In line with various Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by an exuberant rejection for stylistic boundaries partly, and a genuine outrage about human cruelty on the other. It stands as a loud proclamation of a nation finding its global voice alongside fresh commercial and social changes. It promises to be intriguing to observe how Lanthimos views the same story from a current U.S. standpoint — arguably, the other end of the telescope.
Save the Green Planet! can be viewed online for free.
