SPOILERS because this has been on VOD for weeks, and now it’s on Peacock. Also, I mainly want to write about the ending.
Yorgos Lanthimos speaks my language. With Poor Things, I realized he was the closest thing to Kubrick we have today. That’s not to say he’s copying Kubrick’s style (though there are certainly similarities), it’s more about his regard to humanity. His films show a disdain for humanity, but in a funny way. When I finish a Kubrick or Lanthimos film, my usual takeaway is that we’re fucked, but we can laugh about it because what else can you do?
Which brings me to Bugonia. Ignoring the alien aspect for a bit, this film is about how we’ve polarized ourselves as a species into belief systems beyond religion. We now, thanks to technology, can make our own insulated worlds where everything we read and watch that we agree with is the truth, and anything that refutes our views is simply false and most likely part of a secret plot to destroy society as we know it.
This is most punctuated by Teddy and Michelle’s spaghetti dinner conversation. At one point this interaction takes place:
Michelle: “Truth.”
Teddy: “Lies.”
Michelle: “What’s the difference? I can’t change your mind.
Teddy: “You’re right. You can’t.”
This is our world now, and Bugonia takes this to the extreme.
In this film, aliens are real and among us, pharmaceutical companies are using us as unwitting lab rats, the Earth is flat, and we are all hollow worker bees waiting for our overlords to pull the plug, which they do at the end. It’s presented as darkly comedic. It has to be because it’s all so inherently silly, even with all the death.
I hate to apply messages to movies, especially when you can make movies like this mean whatever you want it to mean. But I can’t help but think Teddy is an example of what happens if we just write off the fringe elements of society as simply “crazy.” Sometimes “crazy” people take action.
But, and this is why I don’t like applying messages, Teddy is right. At least, he’s right about Michelle being an alien. He’s wrong in thinking he ever had a chance of getting to that ship and having an intergalactic détente with a bomb strapped to his abdomen, but he’s right about a lot of stuff. If that’s the case, is the film saying all the conspiracy theories are right? As a liberal, Michelle’s estimation that Teddy is a product of his own internet echo chamber is kind of how I feel about most people who disagree with me, politically and otherwise. So by dismissing people who believe shit like the Earth is flat, is Bugonia telling me I’m part of the problem, and I’m just a worker bee?
I don’t think so. Teddy isn’t presented as a hero here. He manipulates and uses Don just as much as he claims the Andromedans (sp?) manipulate humanity. Everybody sucks, and it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong because the world is already broken beyond repair. So if that’s the gist of it all, why not have some fun and make all the crazy shit real?
Though, based on some reddit deep dives, not everyone believes the alien stuff in the film. Some claim everything after the explosion doesn’t actually happen and is just the imagination of Michelle’s concussed brain. I’m sure people have their own reasons for not believing the alien aspect of the film, but I disagree. I think some people just find it too silly, and rather than admit that a film they liked up to that point faltered (in their opinion), they decide it’s all just a hallucination. My problem with that is that it adds nothing thematically to the movie. We’re meant to consider these two sides of humanity for nearly two hours, then it’s all scrapped for ten minutes of “it was all just a dream”? Not only does that negate anything meaningful, it’s also boring.
Others would argue the opposite, and that Michelle being an actual alien negates the satire of corporate leaders being so indifferent to humans that they could be confused for aliens. Making her an actual alien weakens that. Perhaps, but it’s not like Michelle is surrounded by fellow aliens. There are plenty of humans on board with what corporations are doing. With or without alien interference, humans would still be on the destructive path we’re on. So Michelle being an alien does negate the theory for her character specifically, but not for all of humanity.
Whether or not Michelle is really an alien is the crux of the plot, and with most directors, I would assume the resolution would either be ambiguous, or it would be revealed that this was all just part of Teddy’s mental illness and unwillingness to accept the trauma that has happened to him. That would still be an interesting story, and all the performances would still be as great as they are, but it wouldn’t be nearly as memorable as finishing the film on a spaceship and all of humanity being killed off.
But since this is a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, I went in expecting the reveal to be that she is an alien. But a few minutes in, I started to wonder, “Does he think we expect the alien reveal, so he’s actually going with the traditional mental illness approach? But is he expecting us to be expecting him to do that, and he’s going with the alien plot?” It’s the kind of circular thinking of a poisoned wine scenario in which characters keep swapping out the glasses trying to anticipate what the other person anticipates until no one knows what the hell is going on. This is why I love Lanthimos’s work. He has established that his films will go to extreme and unexpected places to the point that I could never be fully confident in knowing where his films will go. That’s what makes him such an exciting director to have working today. When you watch as many movies as I do, being surprised becomes a rare gift.
It’s always great when a movie can be argued about concerning what’s real and what’s imagined, but most importantly, Lanthimos can be counted on to make something entertaining as well as thought-provoking. He doesn’t do it alone, of course. I really need to tone down the auteur theory shit, but I can’t help it with some directors. Bugonia is very much a Lanthimos film, but without the performances of Plemons, Stone, Aiden Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone, this is not the same film. And the score is so perfectly over-the-top. I cannot think of this film without hearing the score, as well. And it wouldn't exist it at all without Will Tracy's script, based on Jang Joon-hwan's screenplay. In other words, I know this isn’t a solo creation, but it’s easier sometimes to write about movies that way.
All of this is just to say Bugonia is one of my favorite films of the year. My top ten isn’t locked in just yet, but right now it’s Sinners then this. Lanthimos and co. just have this ability to craft these beautifully ugly stories that should be absolutely miserable to sit through, but instead I want to keep returning to it (I’ve watched Bugonia four times as of this writing). And it’s a movie I can dwell on about what’s real and what does it all mean, if anything, or I can turn my brain off and let the insanity wash over me like a bucket of Don’s blood from a shotgun blast.
Random Thoughts
According to Plemons, Lanthimos only gave composer Jerskin Fendrix four key words to go with to make the score: Bees. Basement. Spaceship. Emma-bald.” (This is on IMDb trivia, as well.) That’s wild, especially since it’s my favorite score of the year (I didn’t expect to like any score more than Sinners, but it happened). It’s over-bearing, filled with jump-scares, poignant, triumphant; I love it.
I have not seen Save the Green Planet! I plan to soon, but I wanted to write about this before so I don’t look at it as a remake. I don’t mean that I don’t want to consider it a remake; I mean, I don’t want to get distracted by looking at the similarities and differences.
The juxtaposition of the opposing training styles at the beginning is very Rocky IV-esque.
First time I’ve heard semen referred to as “fuck filler.” I don’t like it.
Lanthimos is so goddamned Greek he had to go with Jennifer Aniston for the kidnapping masks.
“No one on Earth gives a single fuck about us.”
The idea of Stavros as a babysitter is hilarious.
When Teddy goes to hit her with a chair for being the grammar police he truly is the internet personified.
Stavros having to act like he wants cake was a real stretch.
“I don’t get the news from the news.”
Not that there’s a good time for your former sexually abusive babysitter turned cop to pay you a visit, but this has to be the worst time it could have happened for Teddy.
“I never, ever did that to anybody else.” I mean, I guess that’s a good thing, but no way that would ever make a victim feel better.
I know these random thoughts are Stavros-heavy (pun intended), but I watch so much of his podcast, I can’t help but point out how fucking crazy it is to see him in this. One last one: when I first came across Stavvy as a comedian, I would have never guessed I would one day see Jessie Plemons bludgeon him to death with a shovel as his head was covered in bees like Nic Cage at the end of The Wicker Man.
Poor Don. Dude just wanted to whack it, play videogames, eat taquitos, and maybe one day find love. Is that so wrong, or is that living in a prison created by the agro-corporate overlords?
“I’m not a sick ape!” I bet you smell like one, Teddy.
Even when she comes limping in with Teddy, she’s still on that “you can leave at 5:30 if you think that’s okay” bullshit. Total alien behavior.