Culture
‘Bugonia’ is another bleak and bizarre black comedy from Yorgos Lanthimos
By: Gordon Briggs
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Powerful alien overlords are secretly controlling humanity. These aliens are actually disguised as ordinary-looking people and have been manipulating humans for generations.
At least that’s what a disgruntled factory worker named Teddy (Jesse Plemmons), believes. There’s no need to worry – because Teddy has a plan.
With the help of his special needs cousin, Don, Teddy plans to kidnap the CEO of Auxolith (Emma Stone), the pharmaceutical company he works as a low-level warehouse packer for, whom he believes is an alien, and force her to take them aboard her alien spaceship.
That is the premise behind Bugonia, a bizarre black comedy from director Yorgos Lanthimos that mixes a kidnapping plot with anxieties about alienation in the modern world.
Oddly enough, the film is a remake of the 2003 South Korean sci-fi comedy film Save the Green Planet! Both movies involve two men who kidnap a powerful CEO, believing them to be an alien with a plan to destroy Earth and cause the collapse of bee colonies. However, Lanthimos distinguishes his take on the film by placing it in a specific post-2020 context in which many Americans cannot even agree on a shared reality, let alone a shared set of facts.
The idea of conflicting realities and class positions is one of the disturbing currents running through this film. A different story would have had Stone kidnapped for financial or creepy-romantic reasons. The movie can generate a great deal of tension from how the kidnapper wants his victim to reject reality and submit to his own. Specifically, he wants to be transported off Earth to an orbiting alien spaceship.
It’s a demand that’s completely absurd, or is it?
As the movie progresses, Stone may have to face his delusion to survive.
Similar to a film from earlier this year, Eddington, you could read Bugonia as a satire of Internet conspiracy culture that has ensnared the minds of several young men. Through Plemmons’ isolated character, the film delves into his intricately designed theory involving bees, chemicals, and an impending apocalypse. You could read the film as an exploration of how a person can become convinced of an outlandish belief and how that belief can drive them to extreme actions.
What gives the film punch is how it sidesteps specific political grievances and asks us to empathize with each character’s sense of “alienation”. Bugonia is a study of alienation, particularly in how characters are unable to connect or communicate with one another, leading to a sense of isolation and misunderstanding, and ultimately to death.
Naturally, the movie’s violent, misanthropic tone may alienate some viewers, but for those who appreciate the unchecked strangeness of Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia is another film to seek out. Rating: ★ ★★ ½