"Save the Green Planet!"

Question

Got this from Netflix yesterday and was absolutely blown away by it. What a wonderfully funny, dark and ultimately heartbreaking film! I can't remember the last time I was this put through the ringer by a movie - it made me laugh, cringe and cry in turns. It blends goofy humor with gut-wrenching sadism and heartfelt pathos. Alejandro Jodorowsky would absolutely love this one, as it shares his affinity for combining the grotesque, the comical and the poignant.
The plot concerns a mentally disturbed young man who kidnaps his former boss, a cold-blooded corporate bigwig, whom he believes to be an alien from the planet Andromeda, which he believes is planning on destroying the Earth in seven days. With the help of his misfit girlfriend, the lunatic locks the CEO up in his basement and proceeds to torture him in a number of sick and inventive ways. Meanwhile, an ambitious young detective teams up with with a washed-up but brilliant ex-detective to find the CEO before he (literally) ends up as dog food.

Sounds like "Misery" on acid, don't it? In fact, it kind of comes off as a remake of that King adaptation kind of the way "Santa Sangre" was Jodorowsky's take on "Psycho", which it to say it uses its inspiration as a springboard for something entirely original. It includes nods to classics like "Blade Runner", "La Strada" and "2001: A Space Odyssey", but it never descends into fan-boy chic like or outright plagiarism like Cretin Tarantino and Rob Zombie's films.
I can't over-emphasize what a special little movie this is. It bombed miserably and was yanked from theatres after a week in the director's native Korea, but I have a hunch that this might end up being a Cult hit ala "Donnie Darko". Its young director (who evidently lost everything on this film)
is certainly one to watch, and I have a feeling we ain't see nothing from him yet. You heard it here first.
"Save the Green Planet!" certainly isn't for all tastes, to be certain, but if you're fond of filmmakers like Jodorowsky, Lynch and De La Iglasias it's definitely a must-see. As for me, it had me pinned to my *** seat and left me feeling an emotional wreck. I can't think of higher praise than that.
Cheers,
B

Usenet · Accepted Answer

Thanks for the recommendation - I've added it to my queue here in the UK.
*** knows I need cheering up after seeing "Viva la Muerte" the night befor last. I don't think it's any coincidence that I had a horrific nightmare last night.
One of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. "Cannibal Holocaust" pales into insignificance after
watching this quite horrific but, I must add, highly intelligent/intellectual film.
Reminding me a lot of the style of Jodorowsky in parts, this is a classic French film from 1971, based in Spain 1939 after Franco's fascists win the Spanish Civil War. The horrors perpetrated by the fascists, the killing of gay poet Federico Garcia Lorca and the mass torture and slaughter of anyone considered either an atheist or a "red", is seen through the eyes of Fendos, a 9 year old Spanish boy with an Oedipal obsession with his mother and a fascination with torturing animals.Because we are seeing what happens through his eyes, we also have a considerable amount of surrealism, hallucination, nightmares, as he tries to work out how his father is being tortured - he was shopped by his sadistic mother. There are some scenes that are a little hard to swallow - the scene where puts mud in his mother's mouth and then licks it out, where he whips his mother (as part of a Catholic Opus Dei ritual) and then she grabs his nuts, or the extremely graphic scenes where animals get tortured - one scene in particular where the mother slits the throat of a live ox and then bathes naked in the blood that is gushing out of the throat of the still live animal is quite disgusting, as is the ram fight where two live rams headbutt one another to death.
If some of the images in this film were not so absolutely disgusting, I would have watched it all over again straight afterwards to try and understand it better. But some of the images were so disgusting I honestly couldn't stomach it. This does not mean, I must stress, that it's a bad movie. It's actually very interesting, very subversive, and very important. It's just quite disgusting in certain scenes.

The IMDB reference is
http://akas.imdb.com/title/tt0066530/combined
here in Europe it wavers between a 12 cert (France) and a 15 cert, it wasn't rated in the US so I assume you can get it at Blockbusters, you can get it on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007149L/ and Neflix too. Very weird, and the animal torturing stuff is particularly hard to swallow. But a valuable piece of subversive film, and I'm glad I watched it.

But I need cheering up now with something inane and fluffy!!

.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Thanks for the recommendation - I've added it to my queue here in the UK. *** knows I need cheering up after seeing "Viva la Muerte" the night befor last. I don't think it's any coincidence that I had a horrific nightmare last night.[/nq]
Well, if that's not a good review I don't know what is! I'll certainly make a point to check it out.
[nq:1]One of the most disturbing films I have ever seen. "Cannibal Holocaust" pales into insignificance after watching this quite horrific but, I must add, highly intelligent/intellectual film.[/nq]
Yeesh. Now that's saying something. "Cannibal Holocaust" is on my short list of films that I'm glad I've seen but that I neve want to see again! It left this jaded horror fan twitching for three days.
[nq:1]Reminding me a lot of the style of Jodorowsky in parts, this is a classic French film from 1971, based ... it's a bad movie. It's actually very interesting, very subversive, and very important. It's just quite disgusting in certain scenes.[/nq]
It sounds a little like "The Tin Drum". That image of the eels slithering out of that severed horse head is terribly hard to shake. But I don't think good manners have any place in any films dealing with the horrors of childhood. You might also want to check out "The Reflecting Skin".
I don't think most of the people in this group want to go anywhere near movies like this, but I believe that images of cruelty and the grotesque are entirely valid ones, especially when dealing with troubling human issues. Surrealists like Lynch, Bunuel and Jodorowsky can endow them with tremendous power. When they're used just for the sake of a simple gross out it's kind of like that kid you knew in the lunch room at school who would open his mouth to show you his chewed up food to get a knee-jerk responds. Of course, Peter Jackson did that quite a bit in his early movies, with hilarious results.
[nq:1]But I need cheering up now with something inane and fluffy!![/nq]
Then stay away from "Save the Green Planet!". Might I suggest a good Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill movie? };)
Cheers,
B

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Then stay away from "Save the Green Planet!". Might I suggest a good Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill movie? };)[/nq]
Ahhh there's a blast from the past!
No, I've decided what I'm going to watch. This:
"FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY"
A Filipino midget(*) James Bond, known as Agent 00, 3 foot tall, hilarious stunts (apparently).
It's in Tagalog but I'm going to watch the English dubbed version. I normally ALWAYS watch films in the original language and subtitled, but apparently this is so badly dubbed it makes this bad film even funnier.

IMDB REFERENCE:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200642/combined
(*) Yes I know "midget" is not PC, but there is nothing PC about "For Y'ur Height Only" so there's no need for the review to be either ;-))

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1][/nq]
[nq:2]Then stay away from "Save the Green Planet!". Might I suggest a good Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill movie? };)[/nq]
[nq:1]Ahhh there's a blast from the past! No, I've decided what I'm going to watch. This: "FOR Y'UR HEIGHT ONLY" ... in the original language and subtitled, but apparently this is so badly dubbed it makes this bad film even funnier.[/nq]
Sounds like it would make a nice double-feature with "The Terror of Tiny Town"!
Cheers,
B

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