The New Film Couldn't Be Weirder Than the Science Fiction Psychological Drama It's Adapted From
Greek surrealist director Yorgos Lanthimos specializes in highly unusual movies. His unique screenplays veer into the bizarre, such as The Lobster, in which singletons are compelled to form relationships or risk being turned into animals. In adapting another creator's story, he frequently picks original works that’s quite peculiar as well — stranger, possibly, than his cinematic take. This proved true for last year's Poor Things, an adaptation of author Alasdair Gray's delightfully aberrant novel, an empowering, sex-positive spin on Frankenstein. Lanthimos’ version stands strong, but partially, his unique brand of oddity and Gray’s balance each other.
Lanthimos’ Next Pick
Lanthimos’ next pick to interpret also came from unexpected territory. The original work for Bugonia, his recent collaboration with acclaimed performer Emma Stone, is 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a perplexing Korean fusion of science fiction, black comedy, horror, irony, psychological thriller, and cop drama. The movie is odd not primarily due to its plot — although that's highly unconventional — but due to the chaotic extremity of its tone and narrative approach. The film is a rollercoaster.
The Burst of Korean Film
There must have been 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, innovative movies from fresh voices of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It debuted alongside Bong’s Memories of Murder and Park’s Oldboy. Save the Green Planet! doesn't quite match up as those iconic films, but it shares many traits with them: extreme violence, morbid humor, sharp societal critique, and bending rules.
The Story Develops
Save the Green Planet! focuses on an unhinged individual who abducts a corporate CEO, believing he’s an extraterrestrial from the planet Andromeda, plotting an attack. Initially, that idea is played as slapstick humor, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (the performer from Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a charmingly misguided figure. Together with his childlike acrobat girlfriend Su-ni (the actress Hwang) don black PVC ponchos and ridiculous headgear encrusted with psyche-protection gear, and use balm in combat. Yet they accomplish in seizing inebriated businessman Kang Man-shik (actor Baek) and bringing him to the protagonist's isolated home, a ramshackle house/lab assembled at a mining site amid the hills, home to his apiary.
A Descent into Darkness
Moving forward, the narrative turns into something more grotesque. The protagonist ties Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and physically abuses him while spouting absurd conspiracy theories, finally pushing the gentle Su-ni away. Yet the captive is resilient; fueled entirely by the belief of his own superiority, he is willing and able to endure awful experiences in hopes of breaking free and lord it over the clearly unwell younger man. Simultaneously, a notably inept police hunt to find the criminal begins. The cops’ witlessness and incompetence is reminiscent of Memories of Murder, although the similarity might be accidental within a story with a plot that appears haphazard and unrehearsed.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! just keeps barrelling onward, propelled by its manic force, trampling genre norms without pause, well past it seems likely it to calm down or falter. Sometimes it seems like a serious story about mental health and pharmaceutical abuse; at other times it becomes a fantasy allegory about the callousness of the economic system; alternately it serves as a dirty, tense scare-fest or an incompetent police story. The filmmaker applies equal measure of hysterical commitment to every bit, and the performer is excellent, even though Lee Byeong-gu constantly changes between wise seer, endearing eccentric, and terrifying psycho as required by the narrative's fluidity in tone, perspective, and plot. One could argue it's by design, not a bug, but it might feel quite confusing.
Designed to Confuse
It's plausible Jang aimed to disorient his audience, indeed. Like so many Korean films of its time, Save the Green Planet! is driven by a joyful, extreme defiance for genre limits in one aspect, and a profound fury about societal brutality on the other. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a culture gaining worldwide recognition during emerging financial and artistic liberties. It promises to be intriguing to witness how Lanthimos views the original plot through a modern Western lens — perhaps, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is available to stream at no cost.
