Bugonia

Yet another Lanthimos film. I was told it will be the last for a while.

My thoughts are a bit mixed on this one. I loved the ending, its visuals and its absurdity. It filled me with a sense of happy pessimism, if that means anything.

I appreciate that the movie was not cutting Teddy slack for how violent his actions were, even though there was a lot of trauma to explain them. His experiences were relatable to all of us living in the end of capitalism, but they were not really used to justify his actions in the sense that he could get away with them. I think his punishment came through Don (trying not to spoil I guess. I don't know if I should -it's not like anyone reads this anyway.)

I have to ask myself whether the violence towards the CEO was gratuitous after a certain point. It does matter that this was a violence against a woman and with Lanthimos I keep asking myself whether his treatment of female bodies always serves a narrative purpose or if sometimes it crosses the line and exists because it's edgy, or because of how men often see women's bodies as a canvas for their power to paint with blood. I'm not saying this in a third wave feminist way, in the "they hate her not because she is a CEO but because she is a woman" way. No, a capitalist is a capitalist. I'm saying this in a "Lanthimos is, in the end of the day, a Greek man, and I don't know if I trust his feminism entirely" way. I'm Greek, so I can say this.

Finally, I'm a bit perplexed by why she was exploiting humans and destroying the environment in the way she was when (oh what the hell, spoilers ahead) she was supposed to be caring about Earth and its environment and whatever the Andromedans were trying to do. I guess I might have missed something, but I don't know if it makes sense to have any care for the environment while being a Bezos-level CEO. Maybe I'm seeing this too much in black and white, or maybe I didn't understand the purpose of their experiments. I guess I'll have to come back to it at some point.