Yorgos Lanthimos
Bugonia

WHO IS THE ALIEN?

Another perspective (after Anderson’s “battles”) that raises the fundamental question: does our world, our civilization, our Western model have any hope for change? And in what way can it be achieved? The whole film revolves around the merciless confrontation between the rich, strong, powerful female protagonist—who could be called a champion of the dominant species (the human one?)—and the two poor, clumsy, desperate outcasts who, in a near-messianic calling, take it upon themselves to save us from ourselves and from the monstrous and unjust inhumanity of the system we have created.

All of us need to find a culprit for the suffering sides of our lives: for the troubles of the world and for our own troubles. But like the mad protagonist, we have stopped looking within ourselves; we are always victims and never responsible for the decay around us, and we have to find our own Moloch, to identify some alien species that plans and establishes an evil rule over our lives.

Lanthimos crafts a tight narrative that intertwines the level of social rebellion against a "system" with that of personal stories of fragility, abuse, injustice, culminating—in a finale that is perhaps over the top but certainly startling—with a visionary verdict devoid of hope for our humanity.

Winking at the Lebowskian anti-heroes (who, however, simply reject the system without putting much effort into changing it and retreat into a private mode of survival), here the only ones who choose to act are probably the most inadequate people for the task. (Also interesting is the parallel with the highly organized and efficient group of subversives in “Una battaglia dopo l’altra”)

And the “pulp” note is not missing, making the horror we have learned to live with (inside and outside ourselves) even more explicit, and which, like Teddy's basement, we keep well hidden while feigning morality and coherence. The Tarantino-like splatter finale throws it in our faces, just in case we’d forgotten…

In the end, then, who is the real alien? Are we, perhaps, all a little “alien” to that welcoming, fair, reassuring humanity that—at least in words—we long for?

The leads are excellent, capable of bouncing between diametrically opposite moods and roles; Lanthimos’s staging and chromatic choices are outstanding; the screenplay is watertight…

REALLY GOOD: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

(Recenstalker 05/11/2025)