Bugonia - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Bugonia is a film that plays with reality. You can read that sentence a few ways, and they're each true. Bugonia plays with the audience's understanding of what is really happening, but it also plays around with elements of the world we find ourselves in. When unassuming but intense Teddy (Jesse Plemons), with the help of his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnaps wealthy CEO Michelle (Emma Stone), he doesn't do it out of malice or revenge. You see, Teddy has a crazy theory bolstered by online research, and he intends to force Michelle to verify his improbable belief.

Bugonia constantly swaps who we believe. We spend just as much time early on with both factions, so there is no instinctual feeling that one or the other is our main character. Once Michelle is captured, she repeatedly changes her tactics when dealing with the implacable Teddy and much more tender Don, leaving the audience unsure from moment to moment how much of what we're seeing is to be believed. Beyond that, Lanthimos and screenwriter Will Tracy are playing with the preconceptions around conspiracy theory and the conspiracy theorists themselves. But I won't go too much further with that line of thought in order to avoid SPOILERS.

What I will say is that Aidan Delbis is a fantastic discovery and gives a very grounded performance. Being a comparatively inexperienced actor holding his own against Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, two fantastically naturalistic performers, even in something as out there as Bugonia, it's quite a feat. Again, this is a much shorter review than I'd like to put forth, but, given the film in question, it's best to go in as cold as possible. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K UHD
This is a fairly basic first-run release, but not shabby by any means. There is a slipcover with the same image as the disc cover: a bald Michelle staring upwards in what may be ecstasy, with what looks like honey and blood dripping down the image. It's all very warm; orangey browns and tans with the golden maybe-honey and maroon maybe-blood. Inside, you find the sleek black plastic dual-disc 4K case. Like I said, a pretty traditional release, but still quite handsome. The 4K is pressed on a BD66 disc with a BD50 serving the 1080p.

The video looks incredible in 2160p HDR10. Bugonia looks incredible and is made more so by largely being unremarkable. There are not many flashy shots or sets on display, but what is here has been crafted with such intentionality that it lends the film a fascination. Sure, Michelle's offices are cool and ultra-modern, but it's the home where Teddy and Don live that repeatedly caught my eye. The house was constructed from the ground up in High Wycombe, England (doubling for Atlanta, Georgia), and was designed by set designer Prue Howard. There are so many interesting details, and the choices in color, texture, and layout made every scene shot inside feel like looking into a jewel box.

To that end, the cinematography by Robbie Ryan - his third collaboration with Lanthimos after The Favorite (2018) and Poor Things (2023) - is amazing. Deep colors, deep shadows, an appreciation for light in a space, and for the feel of nature, which is a surprisingly relevant subtext for this film. Ryan shot on VistaVision, a technique that utilizes a widescreen version of traditional 35mm film, the same technique recently used on The Brutalist (cinematographer Lol Crawley) and One Battle After Another (cinematographer Michael Bauman), making the 2020s the biggest era for the technique since the late '60s.

All of these details in the settings and location, all the fine detail allowed by the VistaVision format, are beautifully rendered in this release. I was frequently struck by how sumptuous a scene looked, whether it was Michelle being held in the basement or Teddy riding his bike to work in bright sunshine, but somehow it never distracted from the overall film. I felt fully immersed in the experiences, like being there. I don't believe I've ever seen a transfer this satisfying-looking, but I'm certainly open to the idea.

I am incredibly happy to see that composer Jerskin Fendrix is nominated for an Academy Award for this score. For multiple reasons. Firstly, it's just a very good score: it has movement and utilizes an occasional focus on one group of instruments over another to highlight feelings of unease, or to emphasize the scope of Teddy's beliefs with appropriate sonic gravitas. What's more, and is my second talking point, he composed this fantastically well-suited score without access to a script or a rough-cut of the film. Apparently, Lanthimos, who Fendrix says "...likes to mess with me", only gave him a handful of key words to work from!

I don't have the fanciest setup right now, but I had no issues with the audio package for Bugonia. On a practical level, I never had to adjust the volume once I found a good level, and despite the presence of the occasional deep tones or intentionally buzzy string section, my soundbar was never tortured, never vibrated to a distracting degree. Additionally, from a mixing perspective, there are scenes with multiple points of audio information and they're all perfectly clear. For example, one scene of Teddy biking features the score, the audio from podcasts he's listening to, and the sounds of the world around him: nature, passing cars, etc. All in a pretty perfect balance.

This only has one feature, I checked both the 4K and standard Blu-ray discs just to be sure, which is underwhelming to put it mildly. This is the main deterrent for me when I consider picking up a recent movie's first major release. But, I will say, it's a very interesting featurette and at over 20 minutes, it's nothing to sneeze at. Would I have liked dedicated, deeper-diving featurettes on the set design, the score, the cinematography, and etc.? I sure would, but I'm not against doing a bit of my own research when something interests me.

• The Birth and the Bees: The Making of Bugonia (HD 23:07)

I've been in the pocket for Yorgos Lanthimos since I went to see The Lobster on a date--yes, and we're still together--and have never really been disappointed in any of his films. Even so, I think Bugonia is a triumph of creativity and fantastic film on multiple metrics. Despite being a remake of a film and sharing a ton of thematic and ideological DNA with that, it is (or I suppose they are) just fantastically unique and thought-provoking. Beyond that, as exemplified above, I loved the production end of things on this film. It looks, sounds, and overall feels fantastic. Just an excellent viewing experience.

If you like auteur filmmaking, UFO / conspiracy thought, paranoid thrillers and / or stand out, believable performances, Bugonia is a must see, and this release does justice to it all. Highly Recommended