Save the Green Planet

Few films manage to combine so many incompatible elements without completely collapsing. There is science fiction, pitch-black comedy, thriller, violence, conspiracy, grotesque moments and a human drama that takes its time revealing itself. For much of Save the Green Planet! I was never quite sure where Jang Joon-hwan was taking me, but that unpredictability ultimately became one of its greatest strengths.
Byeong-gu could easily have remained a caricature of a paranoid man convinced of an absurd theory. Instead, the film gradually shows us where that worldview may have come from. It does not justify his actions, but it makes us understand that behind the absurd behaviour are pain, loss and a life that has progressively distorted him. Shin Ha-kyun handles that mixture of ridiculous, frightening and deeply sad extremely well, while Baek Yoon-sik provides the perfect counterweight in their strange confrontation.
I also like the fact that Jang Joon-hwan refuses to maintain a comfortable tone. An almost hilarious scene can become unpleasant or brutal, only for something deeply melancholic to appear moments later. That tonal disorder could have been unbearable, but here it becomes part of the film's identity. Hong Kyung-pyo's cinematography contributes enormously: both the claustrophobic, unhealthy spaces and the more fantastical moments have a distinctive visual personality without turning the film into a mere exercise in style.
It is impossible not to think about Bugonia, especially after seeing Yorgos Lanthimos's version first. Both share a recognisable narrative core, but the Korean film feels more uncontrolled, more eccentric and also more human. Here madness is not merely a mechanism for satire: underneath it lies a genuine sense of suffering. That gives even the most absurd elements an emotional weight I was not expecting at first.
The final stretch is where everything ultimately came together for me. Not so much because of what happens narratively, but because after so much violence, black humour and delirium, the film suddenly finds an entirely sincere sadness. Those images connected to the protagonist's memories, floating like the remains of a life that can now only be observed from a distance, made me cry. At that point the extravagance of the story stopped mattering and something much simpler and more painful emerged: the fragility of a life made of people, moments and losses.
Not everything works with the same precision, and I completely understand why its mixture of tones may push some viewers away. But it achieved something difficult with me: it made me laugh at utterly ridiculous situations and ultimately left me deeply sad. It is fierce, strange, violent, unpredictable and, underneath all of that, surprisingly human. It may look like a film about a madman determined to save the planet, but what stayed with me was something much smaller: the memories of a person whom life had hit far too many times.