Female Film Critics 24/375
Conspiracy theorists may latch onto Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia, but – for the rest of us – its surreal, satirical concept is beyond bizarre. Loosely adapted from Jang Joon Hwan’s South Korean black comedy horror/thriller Save the Green Planet (2003), Will Tracy’s screenplay revolves around bike-riding, bee-keeping Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons), a disaffected loner who lives with his younger cousin Donny (Aidan Delbis) in a dilapidated Southern farmhouse.
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Director Yorgos Lanthimos embeds a strong social critique in his provocative films and then routinely undermines his promising insights by indulging in sensationalism, especially repulsive violence. It is not surprising, then, that he would decide to remake South Korean director Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 absurdist, sadistic, black comedy science fiction film Save the Green Planet, now titled Bugonia. Diverging minimally from the original, the plot revolves around delusional conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) who abducts Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), CEO of the Auxolith pharmaceutical company.
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Writer/director Ari Aster’s politically divisive Eddington begins with a conflict that will accelerate toward Armageddon. Set in May 2020 in Eddington, New Mexico, the town’s history alone divides it, one narrative for the native inhabitants and one for the others. In addition, the physically forbidding landscape mirrors the incompatible, eccentric world of each character, all happy in their own theoretical bunkers. None even agree on the town/pueblo border, much less a division between outlandish conspiracy theories and actual events. Add in racial and gender issues, the prevalence of guns, and the quick resort to violence as a solution that is no solution, and this community will soon shatter.
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Call me a philistine but I wouldn’t wish having to watch Yorgos Lanthimos’ dreadful 165-minute Kinds of Kindness dirge on my worst enemy! After intriguing audiences with Poor Things (2023) and The Favourite (2018), which were – at least – comprehensible, Greek ‘auteur’ Lanthimos reunites with his co-screenwriter Efthimis Filippou to create a trilogy of bizarre, almost incoherent cinematic ‘essays’ exploring themes of dominance/control, faith and love.
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This year, the Cannes Film Festival spotlighted a rich diversity within its Official Selection Jury, including prominent women like Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) and the Jury President, Oscar-winning director Greta Gerwig (Barbie). The festival celebrated the achievements of many female filmmakers and actresses, who not only appeared on screens in the South of France but also took home prestigious awards. The festival was a powerful celebration of women’s contributions to cinema, setting a high standard for future events.
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With the Cannes Film Festival on the way May 14th – 25th, this year’s awards season will officially begin. Out of all those promising films on the slate from Oscar winner Emma Stone in her next collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos, Kinds of Kindness, to Andrea Arnold’s Bird, a lot of movies that sound good on paper will be thrown against the wall to see if they stick. In the past decade-plus, Cannes has become a battle ground in the fight for female representation. The balance has changed.
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There was a hurly burly to this Oscars/Globes/SAGs season in the wake of the strikes. Tiaras could be worn again. No more Rosie the Riveter anti-glam jumpsuits. Men, like Rustin’s daring and dapper Colman Domingo, won the runway like they haven’t before. Chicken Little may moan that ‘the sky is falling’ in the wake of the pandemic, theatrical contraction, those gnarly but necessary strikes, and the ridiculous consolidation of the industry under men who know how to negotiate their golden parachutes but not how to tell stories or make art. Still, there are huge streaks of light. While four out of five of the Best Director nominees were (white) men, French film director Justine Triet made a nondogmatic domestic drama that was superbly directed – and colored outside the lines. Anatomy of a Fall, also nominated for a Best Picture, is a film recognized for being muscular, and challenging. It’s a movie that demands the theatrical experience because it needs to be seen and immediately discussed. It’s disruptive.
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I’m told that Yorgos Lanthimos’s films (Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Favourite) are an “acquired taste,” meaning that – at first viewing – they’re unpleasant but after being experienced repeatedly, they’re, perhaps, likeable and can be appreciated. Unfortunately, I have not found that to be true, particularly as it applies to his newest sci-fi dramedy Poor Things, a strange, surreal satire that won the Golden Lion in Venice and features Emma Stone’s graphic full-frontal nudity.. Adapting Scottish author/artist Alasdair Gray’s 1992 dementedly comic novel, screenwriter Tony McNamara focuses the late-Victorian-era story on the bizarre evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a suicidal pregnant woman reanimated by reclusive, facially-scarred mad-scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), who transplants into her cranial cavity the brain of the baby in her womb.
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Poor Things satirizes Victorian England through naïve Bella Baxter. Some directors enjoy pushing their films’ style and content beyond conventional formulas. That group includes Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos whose work includes The Lobster, The Favourite, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. With his newest, Poor Things, Lanthimos has exceeded even his previous outlandish choices as Bella Baxter pursues a life of unregulated, hedonistic indulgence.
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Poor Things, a screenplay from the pen of Tony McNamara (Cruella, The Favourite), from a novel by Alasdair Gray, gets the Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster) treatment as he directs Emma Stone like you’ve never seen her before in this sci fi black comedy reanimated romance that can only be described as extraordinarily weird. One could look at Poor Things as a story of feminism. A depressed and kept woman breaks away to successfully take control of her life, but is her empowerment all done through a male perspective? This makes Poor Things, as odd as it is, the perfect discussion film.
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