Bugonia 4K 2025

I like the trend toward madness that directors have picked up on this year. The world is crazy, and cinema merely reflects reality. Anderson, Aster, and now Lanthimos happily declare: we're all going to die! Sooner than you expected.

I liked Lanthimos in the days of The Lobster (an unforgettable performance by the fat, wiggling, well-fed Farrell) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (the dangerous teenager, the degenerate Keoghan). Then the director went off on some psychedelic nonsense, but Ari Aster (who produced this film) brought the wayward Odysseus back on the right track, infecting him with his madness.

This film mocks everyone. ‘Bugonia’ mocks conspiracy theorists, anti-conspiracy theorists, pharmaceutical companies, and humanity as a whole. According to the director, we are all unworthy of living on this beautiful planet and deserve to die. Only bees will continue to diligently pollinate flowers after our death. Feeling energized?

Why bees? Insects are mentioned in the holy book. Samson's riddle. “Out of the eater came forth the eaten, out of the predator came forth the sweet.” Bugonia is a pagan ritual in which bees are born from the body of a dead bull. The cycle of life and death.

Emma Stone's shaving of her head, which delighted all the critics, can also be linked to Samson, whose strength was in his hair. And also, Plemon's character shows off his knowledge of the word “shibboleth,” which is also a biblical theme. So, two idiots kidnap the head of a pharmaceutical company, suspecting that she is a reptilian, or something? They shave her head to deprive her of her connection to the cosmos and lock her up while they wait... I won't spoil it.

Lanthimos skillfully parallels the preparations for the kidnapping with the training of the potential victim. Their training is ridiculous and absurd, while she prepares seriously. In the interrogation scenes, the camera shoots Stone from above. She definitely looks like an alien — each of her huge, unblinking eyes could fit several packs of Plemons. She acts like an experienced psychiatrist, while Plemon, dirty, smelly, sweaty, with greasy hair and nasty red sideburns growing right out of his nose, is a very dangerous, violent patient. The camera shows him from below. This confrontation is a real treat for the eyes and ears.

Plemons' character is crazy, raving about an alien invasion and fighting against greedy pharmacists who force deadly drugs on sick people (hello, COVID!). Or so it would seem. This film reminded me of the 1997 film Conspiracy Theory starring Mel Gibson, a psychopath who sees conspiracies everywhere. Or maybe he doesn't.

Bugonia has it all—severed heads, gunshot wounds, knife wounds (or rather, pitchfork wounds), apocalypse, machine-gun dialogue, an autistic actor, and a final twist that turns this film into an undisguised mockery of the viewer.

Bugonia is very evil, very cynical, and very good.