During the early 2000s, there was a wave of South Korean cinema that made its way to the west. While you have titles that gained international attention as all-time favorites like Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy and Kim Jee-woon’s double-hitter of A Tale of Two Sisters and A Bittersweet Life, there are the more obscure films like Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet! that will no doubt be revisited in light of its recently released US remake.
Considering the 2003 original’s unique tone that juggles slapstick comedy, horrific torture and tragedy in a way that you associate with Korean cinema during that time, you can see the material being a perfect fit for director Yorgos Lanthimos, who had no awareness of the original film when introduced to Will Tracy’s screenplay for Bugonia. The story focuses on conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) and his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), both of whom kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), a powerful CEO, suspecting that she is secretly an alien who wants to destroy Earth.
While Bugonia downplays the insanity of its source material, it taps into what Lanthimos has often explored throughout his filmography, which is about damaged people getting lost in messed-up situations, such as his previous film Kinds of Kindness. While there are sprinkles of humor throughout, the tone is closer to the director’s earlier work like Dogtooth where there is a deliberate uncomfortableness, in particular a torture sequence that some viewers may find upsetting.
Having previously collaborated with Lanthimos and understanding a tone that balances tragedy and comedy, Stone and Plemons continues to give outstanding physical performances from the former trying to come in terms with her current situation while rocking a shaved head, to the latter who always looks like he is about to go off in some violent outburst. And in-between the central clash, you have Don – played by Aidan Delbis in his first feature film role – who is being manipulated by his older cousin and indecisive about how he feels about the whole situation.
By transferring the original Korean setting to the States, Bugonia has a lot to say about the country and its current affairs, particularly a divide between the rich and the poor, established early on when Melissa records a motivational video about diversity that she doesn’t really believe in. While conspiracy theorists have been around forever, they have become more prevalent in the digital age with movements such as Flat Earth believers of which Bugonia takes jabs at, and yet at its twisted heart, it tells a story about a man whose life has been ruined by others and chooses to believe in the absurd as his way of coping with a family tragedy.
With a budget that makes Bugonia Lanthimos’ most expensive film, which reunites him with a lot of key collaborators like composer Jerskin Fendrix and cinematographer Robbie Ryan, Bugonia plays out like a bottle episode that makes great use of Teddy’s elaborate home (thanks to production designer James Price) where fun and mayhem occur, balancing out with the tensity and gruesomeness.
