Bugonia begins with bees.
The title of Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest droll satire comes from an ancient Greek belief that bees are manifested from the carcass of a cow, which serves as a metaphor in this story of a pharmaceutical CEO (Emma Stone) held hostage by a man (Jesse Plemons) who believes she’s an alien.
Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan, Oscar-nominated for his work on two previous Lanthimos films, “The Favourite” and “Poor Things,” understood the importance of our buzzing insect friends to the movie’s ultimate success.
“The film is about a whole universe that is alien to us, while we’re alien to the bees,” Ryan said, noting that there was an actual beehive on the film’s set in Henley-on-Thames, an hour from London.
“It was a protected space and the whole crew had to zip up into bee suits. So we literally looked like spacemen landing on another planet as we went up the hill to film all those opening shots of the bees pollinating flowers in nature. And getting those shots isn’t always achievable in an instant. You have to be observant.”
That’s emblematic of Ryan’s whole career as a modern master of capturing the authentic world through his lens. In addition to his films with Lanthimos, he has photographed a total of 10 features for social-realist auteurs Ken Loach (“I, Daniel Blake,” “The Old Oak”) and Andrea Arnold (“American Honey,” “Fish Tank,” “Bird”).
“Bugonia” is a remake of the 2003 film “Save the Green Planet!,” a South Korean comedy that Ryan didn’t watch beforehand but intends to during his Christmas break. Much of the Lanthimos version is set within a drab basement, where Stone’s character is chained up with her head shaved bald and smeared in antihistamine cream to prevent her alien species from identifying her location, according to her captor.
The actress did in fact shave her head for the role, and Ryan didn’t want to embellish her look via lighting. “There’s that classic John Cassavetes quote: ‘The greatest location in the world is the human face,’” he said. “And the idea of Emma Stone looking how she does, that’s a very striking image all on its own. When I think of “Bugonia,” I will always think of that image of her on the poster – her bald head and one big eye, looking up.”
To that point, a main element of Ryan’s design was to show Stone in full exposure. “It’s not often that Yorgos tells me too much about anything,” he said with a laugh and explained that Lanthimos suggested an entire set-wide lighting plan for the basement.
“So the room starts out with one fluorescent light. Then there’s another light in the next scene. You are introduced to more and more of the basement as the film goes on. Within a few more scenes, as Emma’s character is exploring the space, you’re more than halfway through the whole basement.”
But a visual fluke resulted in a consequential flourish of color. The movie was shot in 1.50:1 aspect ratio on VistaVision, the revived high-resolution film format used recently for “The Brutalist” and “One Battle After Another.” And when the camera was pointed at the basement’s staircase, pink insulation on the walls created a rich scarlet color all around Stone.
“We were using daytime film stock and our tungsten light bulb created this red blob of light in that space,” Ryan said. “We couldn’t extract the color, so instead we just leaned into it. And it seemed to fit in with what’s happening at that point in the story.”
As intensely dark as their subject matters get, Lanthimos’ movies always hum with a deadpan sense of humor, which is most evident in “Bugonia” during an early scene when Stone’s character is sloppily kidnapped from the driveway of her home. Ryan shot most of the sequence from a distance, intensifying the clumsy comedy of the situation.
“With an action scene like that, you don’t want to be amongst it,” he said. “It’s funnier when it’s observational. And I can’t say enough about how much Yorgos thinks with an editorial mind when he’s filming. He’s so tuned in to what will work in the finished film.”
For sure, his four collaborations with Lanthimos and Stone (who also produced “Poor Things” and “Bugonia” and appeared in “Kinds of Kindness”) have established a particular type of phantasmagoria that’s become the Greek director’s signature.
Ryan explained that he still “feels like I’m on a learning curve every day on a Yorgos set,” while being proud that the movies stir up audiences and set off debates. “This one is telling us off for being totally blind to what’s going on and asks, essentially, if the human race should exist,” he said. “It’s starting a conversation, which all good movies do, and it’s rewarding for us to be a part of.”
This story first ran in the Below-the-Line issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine. Read more from the issue here.
