"For one thing, Teddy doesn't just think Michelle is an evil Big Pharma executive responsible for massive ecological harm, he's also convinced that she's an alien, specifically an Andromedan, and that her people are ultimately set on the extinction of humanity. For another, both Teddy and Donny voluntarily chemically castrated themselves before abducting her, in order to avoid just those sorts of temptations."
"Lanthimos has made a career out of seasoning bizarre and disturbing scenarios with enough wry humor and originality to garner acclaim and awards, but Bugonia ranks as his darkest and most mean-spirited film since he's come to Hollywood after spearheading the so-called "Greek Weird Wave" with the perverse family saga Dogtooth. It doesn't have the period surrealism of The Favourite and Poor Things, or the absurd allegory of The Lobster, to leaven what's at its core a nearly nihilistic worldview."
Teddy is a disturbed conspiracy theorist who tends backyard beehives while researching colony collapse disorder and believes a pharmaceutical CEO is an Andromedan alien intent on human extinction. He and his cousin Donny chemically castrate themselves, then kidnap Michelle, shave her bald, coat her in antihistamine cream, and tie her to a table to force a confession and demand to be taken to her leader. The film delivers violent, fervent interrogations and bleak humor. The tone is dark and mean-spirited, lacking the period surrealism or allegorical leavening of Lanthimos's earlier films, and centers on the human cost of informational pollution.
Read at Oregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
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