BUGONIA. Bee Movie [REVIEW]

The enigmatic title of Yorgos Lanthimos’s new film is neither a joke nor an artistic provocation. According to Greek mythology, bugonia is the belief that bees are born from the bodies of dead animals, particularly bulls. Death gives birth to new life, the cycle is completed, and nature’s balance is preserved. Knowing the etymology of the title allows us to view Lanthimos’s film – especially its nihilistic ending – in a new, surprisingly optimistic light. It also points us toward the key animals for interpreting Bugonia: the bees.

“What do you admire about bees?” asks Teddy, played by Jesse Plemons, who keeps bees as a hobby. The question is directed at Michelle, the CEO of a massive corporation producing environmentally harmful pesticides, who is tied to a chair. She doesn’t hesitate long; she answers intuitively, in line with her own beliefs: for their organization and work ethic, for doing their jobs without constantly complaining about the world around them. “And that’s what makes them so easy to exploit?” Teddy counters. Whether their conversation is still about bees is, of course, a rhetorical question.

It’s much the same in Bugonia with the issue of aliens – a central thread built on the constant tension between the literal and metaphorical meanings. Yes, Teddy and his cousin Don kidnap Michelle because they truly believe she is a representative of an alien civilization threatening humanity’s survival. Will Tracy’s deft screenplay (he also wrote The Menu and Succession) keeps us guessing about the woman’s true identity until the very end – but from the start, it shows that, in a metaphorical sense, the kidnappers are right: Michelle really is from another planet.

In the opening montage, Lanthimos juxtaposes two mornings. The incels, holed up in a rotting house, jog through the woods, do push-ups on creaking floors, and ride broken-down bikes through the city. Meanwhile, the high-powered businesswoman practices yoga on her apartment terrace, her face covered with a LED mask for skincare, before driving to her company’s headquarters in a massive black Jeep, sipping a diet shake from a Stanley cup and cheerfully humming along to Chappell Roan. The characters live in the same place but in two entirely different realities, separated by light-years. Their paths can only cross under very specific circumstances.

In that sense, Teddy and Don’s mission is a class act – a veiled, half-conscious act of revenge against social injustice, against a determinism that has placed some people at the top and forced others into an endless struggle for survival. There are workers and there is a queen, just like in a well-organized hive. On the surface, we might want to root for Teddy and Don. Their intentions seem pure: two underdogs trying to save the world from destruction while resisting capitalist exploitation. But Lanthimos and Tracy complicate the matter. They turn the protagonists – especially Teddy, whom Don idealizes without reflection – into fanatical conspiracy theorists, dangerous radicals who derive their worldview from YouTube and Reddit algorithms. Their madness and its accompanying propensity for violence make us hesitate before agreeing with them on anything.

Opposite this duo, the director and screenwriter set a woman cold to the bone – a corporate viper whose high position stems not only from her privileged birth but also from her mastery of manipulation. One of Bugonia’s greatest strengths lies in its constant moral ambiguity. It’s hard to sympathize with any of the characters, but just as hard to condemn or despise them outright. The arguments are distributed fairly evenly, and the rhetorical duels between Teddy and Michelle – about the state of the modern world – are as gripping as the sporadic action sequences. Unsurprisingly, much of this is thanks to Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, whose performances are so intense and expressive they could fuel several other casts.

In writings about Bugonia, comparisons frequently arise to Ari Aster’s Eddington and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another – two satires that, in various ways, address the deepening polarization of American society. While Lanthimos’s project can certainly be read through that lens, I suggest a broader, more universal perspective: seeing it as a story about the unequal distribution of power and the doomed attempt to overturn the existing order.

Viewed this way, the film most spiritually akin to Bugonia is Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (a comparison further justified by the fact that Lanthimos’s film is a faithful remake of the cult Korean sci-fi Save the Green Planet!). There too, an entertaining genre piece went hand in hand with a clear social message that challenged existing divisions. Yet the quasi-cathartic explosions of violence that close both films leave no illusions: humanity’s end is more likely than the end of the system that deepens inequality and poisons our planet. One can only hope that our successors – whoever they may be – will manage to build a better world.