The New Film Couldn't Be More Bizarre Than the Science Fiction Psychological Drama It's Adapted From
Greek surrealist filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is known for highly unusual movies. His unique screenplays veer into the bizarre, like The Lobster, in which singletons are compelled to form relationships or face changed into beasts. When he adapts existing material, he tends to draw from basis material that’s quite peculiar too — odder, perhaps, than his cinematic take. This proved true with 2023’s Poor Things, a film version of the novel by Alasdair Gray gloriously perverse novel, a feminist, liberated reimagining of Frankenstein. His film is effective, but to some extent, his specific style of eccentricity and Gray’s neutralize one another.
Lanthimos’ Next Pick
The filmmaker's subsequent choice to interpret similarly emerged from the fringes. The original work for Bugonia, his newest project alongside leading actress Emma Stone, was 2004’s Save the Green Planet!, a perplexing Korean fusion of science fiction, black comedy, terror, irony, psychological thriller, and cop drama. The movie is odd less because of what it’s about — although that's decidedly unusual — but due to the frenzied excess of its mood and directorial method. It’s a wild, wild ride.
The Burst of Korean Film
There likely existed something in the air across Korea in the early 2000s. Save the Green Planet!, helmed by Jang Joon-hwan, was part of a boom of stylistically bold, boundary-pushing movies from a new generation of filmmakers including Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook. It was released 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, dark comedy, bitter social commentary, and genre subversion.
The Story Develops
Save the Green Planet! revolves around a disturbed young man who abducts a chemical-company executive, thinking he's an alien from the planet Andromeda, plotting an attack. Initially, the premise is presented as slapstick humor, and the lead, Lee Byeong-gu (the actor Shin known for Park’s Joint Security Area and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), appears as a lovably deluded fool. Together with his innocent circus-performer girlfriend Su-ni (the star) sport plastic capes and absurd helmets adorned with psyche-protection gear, and employ ointment as a weapon. However, they manage in kidnapping drunken CEO Kang Man-shik (the performer) and taking him to a secluded location, a ramshackle house/lab assembled on an old mine in a rural area, which houses his beehives.
Shifting Tones
Moving forward, the story shifts abruptly into something more grotesque. The protagonist ties Kang to a budget-Cronenberg torture chair and subjects him to harm while declaiming outlandish ideas, finally pushing the innocent partner away. However, Kang isn't helpless; fueled entirely by the certainty of his innate dominance, he is willing and able to undergo terrifying trials in hopes of breaking free and dominate the disturbed younger man. At the same time, a notably inept investigation to find the criminal commences. The detectives' foolishness and incompetence echoes Memories of Murder, even if it may not be as deliberate in a film with plotting that appears haphazard and spontaneous.
Unrelenting Pace
Save the Green Planet! continues racing ahead, driven by its own crazed energy, trampling genre norms underfoot, well past you might expect it to either settle down or lose energy. Sometimes it seems as a character study about mental health and excessive drug use; sometimes it’s a fantasy allegory regarding the indifference of the economic system; sometimes it’s a dirty, tense scare-fest or a bumbling detective tale. Jang Joon-hwan applies equal measure of feverish dedication to every bit, and the performer shines, although the protagonist continuously shifts between savant prophet, lovable weirdo, and terrifying psycho as required by the film's ever-changing tone across style, angle, and events. It seems that’s a feature, not a bug, but it may prove quite confusing.
Designed to Confuse
The director likely meant to disorient his audience, of course. Similar to numerous Korean films during that period, Save the Green Planet! is driven by a gleeful, maximalist disrespect for stylistic boundaries partly, and a genuine outrage about societal brutality on the other. The film is a vibrant manifestation of a culture establishing its international presence alongside fresh commercial and cultural freedoms. One can look forward to see Lanthimos' perspective on the same story from a current U.S. standpoint — possibly, a contrasting viewpoint.
Save the Green Planet! is accessible for viewing at no cost.
