Byung-ku in Save the Green Planet (2003) serves as a unique storyteller who discovers unexpected similarities and disparities, continuity and discontinuity, and cause and effect among unrelated elements.
A Google search for the best storytellers reveals a list of prominent literary figures like Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, and J.K. Rowling. While these authors are indeed renowned, the first great storyteller you likely encountered as a child was someone close to you, like a parent or an aunt, who introduced you to a world of imagination filled with fantastical characters and events that made perfect sense.
Byung-ku is an adept storyteller
Recall being just four or five years old, with no particular skills or knowledge to grasp the complexities of the world. Isn’t it almost miraculous that you understood stories about swans turning into princes at night or a wolf pretending to be a granny? The fact that these tales were far from reality didn’t confuse you. Instead, their departure from reality made them more comprehensible, even if the exact meaning was elusive. After listening to a story, you even see things differently, realizing the relations between characters and events.
Byung-ku is an adept storyteller. He pieces together seemingly inconsequential facts from his life and concludes that the CEO of his mother’s company is an alien from Andromeda intent on destroying Earth. Byung-ku’s unique perspective weaves his experiences into a story that is shocking, compelling, and deeply resonant, even if the precise point of engagement is unclear.
To Own His Story
Unfortunately, Byung-ku does not live to see his theory validated. In the final moments, the man Byung-ku insists is an alien seizes the chance to escape to his mothership and activates a button to destroy Earth. This ending, which Byung-ku envisioned, sees the alien CEO completing the narrative of invasion. Byung-ku remains the creator of this story but not the force driving its conclusion. Thus, Byung-ku’s life history, which built up to the alien narrative, vanishes, leaving the CEO’s reasons for coming to Earth to assess its salvation as the prevailing truth, despite some overlapping threads in their stories. Byung-ku ultimately does not own his story.
In contrast, Bella Baxter in Poor Things (2023) admirably owns her body and her story. Godwin Baxter, a physician disfigured by his father’s experiments, finds a nearly drowned, heavily pregnant woman on the Thames shore. In a Frankenstein-esque operation, Godwin transplants the unborn baby’s brain into the woman’s head, creating Bella. She begins life as a constructed being under Godwin’s design, but the pleasure of a cucumber soon breaks her from his mold, sparking a journey of sexual discovery and independence. One wishes Byung-ku had the chance to own his story by exploring it beyond his dark and damp basement workshop.
To Recreate the Original’s Charm
It is understandable that Byung-ku remains a recluse with no sympathetic ears. The crazier his theories, the truer they sound, as his claims reflect the pain and turbulence he has endured. His insistence on the alien CEO is a window into his mind and soul. If taken out of his solitude, he might lose the power of his lone voice. Nevertheless, it would be intriguing to see him develop his story further through encounters with the world, fashioning and owning his narrative. Mr. Lanthimos, as the storyteller of a new version of Save the Green Planet, what would be Byung-ku’s ultimate objective? I hope it is as exciting as Bella’s ambitious journey.
