The divisive third act of Bugonia is worth the price of admission. When the blood, guts and crazy twists start to fly, it becomes a true black comedy. The final scenes are pure cinema. you’ll need it as catharsis for surviving the unrelenting tragedy of the first hour, where laughs are scant.
Emma Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos have reunited for their fourth outing (having already worked together for The Favourite, Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness), a remake of 2003 Korean film Save the Green Planet about a conspiracist determined to save the Earth from aliens in the run-up to a lunar eclipse. As the title suggests, Bugonia is less interested in the eco-saviour narrative and more about strange ritual violence; bugonia was a belief system that involved beating an ox to a pulp to spontaneously generate bees.
