An impulse to blame others or shirk responsibility has always been foreign to me. I appreciate the complexity of the universe and the search for genuine answers to its contradictions. That worldview is not an easy one – it demands time, energy, and emotional resources. Understanding another person or group feels like my own kind of mental sudoku, even though that effort is rarely met with the same reciprocity.
The truth is, shifting fault onto some total evil is far easier than accepting personal accountability. I’ve been there too — as we all have. But I’ve learned I’m a bad liar, especially when it comes to myself, and I can’t hold onto comforting illusions for very long.
When something is easier, our human, often silly, brains cling to it as a form of protection. Corporations, figures of power, the powerless, and my favourite cause of all our problems — aliens. Belief doesn’t need to be true to be powerful; it only needs to be convenient. Simplicity quiets fear and stills the mind when everything begins to fall apart.
My favourite movie of the year offers no such comfort. Bugonia captures the screaming madness of the world as it is. In its disturbing, surreal way, it exposes something primitive in human nature, showing how easily the mind deceives itself — inventing any story necessary to quiet fear and numb pain. An old, familiar tale of humanity failing once again, while warning that we don’t always have to choose temporary comfort. Sometimes we have to stop and look honestly at where we are heading as a society.
Bugonia is one of the sharpest representations of today’s problems. If you’re expecting satisfying or logical explanations, you will be deeply disappointed. Every plot twist only deepens the confusion. And despite starring Emma Stone and being directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, it failed at the box office.
Bugonia refuses to exist within a single genre. It shifts between sci-fi, satire, thriller, dark comedy, and existential drama. This blending becomes a way to surprise an audience that already knows the rules. Modern viewers recognize tropes instantly and grow bored with predictable formulas. Multi-genre films allow contradictory emotions to coexist, but that same eclectic chaos can also signal a deeper creative crisis.
Much like a century ago, when eclecticism first emerged, we are once again in a moment of disorientation — trying to understand how to live in a new world, overwhelmed by information, possibilities, and tools we barely know how to use. Metamodernism may have reached its peak in cinema: combining the seemingly incompatible into one bowl and making it all somehow make sense.
The same instability defines Bugonia’s themes. What does it feel like to live right now? When the world overflows with information, one emotional language is no longer enough. This instability isn’t a flaw — it’s the point. There is no longer a single, coherent storyline. The film carries many anxieties: conspiracy culture, corporate power, environmental collapse, alienation, and mental exhaustion. They are united by one core fear — what happens when facing reality requires more strength than we have left?
Myths are born when reality becomes unbearable. The desire for simple explanations is deeply human, and Bugonia shows how far that desire can go — to a place where believing in the apocalypse feels easier than accepting how broken things already are.
The movie leaves you questioning who the real monster is. Is it merely the extreme paranoia of a mentally ill maniac, or are there truly ominous forces responsible for the chaos around us? Is it a naive, broken human chasing an idea of evil embodied by a heartless, cynical CEO, or is the reality far more disturbingly reversed?
The modern world is messy, ironic, frightening, and absurd all at once. We are given endless tools to observe it, but no guidance on how to use them. Bugonia defined my year not because it offered answers, but because it echoed my own confusion, giving me a brief sense of relief in realizing it isn’t just me jumping through burning fires all the time. It captured how unsettled everything feels — how people cope when they no longer have the capacity to see clearly. It understands the comfort of turning chaos into a narrative, and how tempting it is to shift the blame elsewhere, while showing exactly why it’s important not to do so.
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