The Aliens of Bugonia
Bugonia was a film that had me guessing until the very end.
Though my conclusions regarding the film’s themes had crystallised by the moment Emma Stone first confessed to being an alien, the details of the plot continued to twist and turn in ways I could never have expected. Was Michelle wholly innocent in the conversation that led to Don’s suicide? What were the implications of the body parts in Teddy’s basement? Why didn’t Michelle run away at every opportunity that presented itself?
To me, Bugonia is a film about alienation, and I thought myself very clever for concluding such before the film had reached half its runtime. From the very beginning, Stone’s character (Michelle) is presented as an inhuman being, with her robotic, ‘corporate’ lifestyle and manner of speech. Throughout her captivity, Michelle demonstrates her capability for lying—manipulating not only Teddy and Don, but the audience as well. To us proletarians, Michelle is an alien irrespective of the film’s ultimate twist.
It is important to consider as well that Teddy and Don are as aliens to Michelle. These strange, unkempt hicks have kidnapped her and smeared her with antihistamine cream on the basis of a crackpot conspiracy theory. They shave off her hair, dress her in their mother’s/aunt’s clothes, and accuse her of things which she has not done, could never have done. Though at first she seems to be sympathetic towards the injuries of her employee Teddy, Michelle later watches Don and Sandy die without remorse. And why should Michelle feel remorse for any of these proletarians? To her they are mere instruments in the service of her livelihood—bees in her apiary. Michelle feels no shame in swatting her bees when they sting.
Both captor and captive are alien to one another, and that is precisely what makes the dialogue of this film so enthralling; two worlds, once separate, now forced together. To see worker and CEO laying out their honest thoughts of one another in such a claustrophobic setting was, frankly, cathartic.
But it was the final 10 minutes of the film that really sealed the deal for me. When Michelle pulled off her oxygen mask in the ambulance, I was practically jumping for joy. Watching Michelle ascend to her mothership did not ruin the film for me as it did for some viewers. In fact, Michelle’s decision to destroy humanity renders the film more thematically complete.
After all, is the destruction of our species not already what the bourgeoisie is presently undertaking? Is our planet not on fire right now at the behest of the real aliens that rule over us?
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