Okja (2017)
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
A young girl named Mija risks everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend - a massive animal named Okja.
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The story, like its titular gigantic pig-hippo, is a hybrid, nodding to kid-creature teams from E.T. to My Neighbor Totoro, while also dabbling in both farcical and sincere ecodrama.
These are charming scenes, reminiscent of “Pete’s Dragon” (as she tosses real fruit to the animated creature) and “My Neighbor Totoro” (right down to the way Mija naps on the giant beast’s belly), featuring great visual effects work on the creature, designed to look adorably dog-like.
In a first act that is strongly reminiscent of Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, Bong charmingly portrays the loving bond between Mija and Okja as they cavort about the forest, pick persimmons, of which Okja is particularly fond, and take naps in the shade with Mija cozily stretched out atop Okja’s massive stomach.
In many ways the film comes on like a children’s story, with scenes of Mija and Okja in an idyllic forest capturing in live-action the same sense of wonder as Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki (“Spirited Away,” “My Neighbor Totoro”), whom Bong has acknowledged as an influence, before the action takes increasingly ominous, darker turns.
It could be called either audacious or misjudged when the final act takes us to a factory farm for giant pigs, where the film startlingly turns into something between My Neighbor Totoro and Le Sang des Bêtes.
It’s also because it’s a relationship we recognize from the other children’s classics to which it easily compares (“E.T.” being the obvious touchpoint), and possibly even, if we were very lucky kids, from our actual childhoods.
The very notion of blending an ET-style heart-warmer with a sometimes graphic exploration of industrial-scale food production practices might be a challenge too far for most tastes.
Some might say that “Okja” is a mash up of moments from such films as “Lassie,” “King Kong,” “Mighty Joe Young,” “Soylent Green” and, even “E.T.” And, in a way, it is.
On the one hand, it is a film that is clearly trying to hit the same sweet spot that “E.T.” did 35 years ago and there are a number of moments here that are indeed as magical, both technologically and emotionally, as anything that Spielberg whipped up back in the day.
The movie’s underlying premise — child bonds with otherworldly beast and defends it from cruel adults — easily calls to mind “E.T.” or “Pete’s Dragon,” but Bong bends the formula into his own agenda.
Weaving together an animal-rights message as well as cautionary warnings about corporate greed, the movie becomes an awkward hybrid blending old-fashioned movies like "Babe" or "The Black Stallion" with the surrealism of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."
There are also visual and thematic nods to cartoonist turned director Terry Gilliam , who made films that were childlike and sometimes childish but never strictly for kids—in particular the 1985 anti-fascist fable " Brazil ," which appears to have inspired the derring-do of ALF's membership, chivalrous rebels who evade police by diving off bridges.
His expert blend of dark humor and horrifying drama can be seen in such early classics as Barking Dogs Never Bite and Memories of Murder.
Fans of Memories of Murder (2003) and Mother (2009) will be pining with me for those films’ acidic nastiness, lyrical ambivalence and CGI-free scenery, and mourning how the Korean New Wave, of which Bong was an integral figure, devolved so quickly into a mini-Hollywood, complete with hard drives doing most of the heavy lifting.
“Memories of Murder” (2003) was a serial-killer detective flick that unraveled from deadpan entropy; “The Host” (2006) was a Godzilla movie that made a left turn into political parody and family slapstick.
A choppy mix of anti-corporate farce and Spielbergian fantasy, Bong Joon-Ho’s bilingual Okja veers wildly, but never stalls; if Bong, the South Korean writer-director behind The Host , Memories Of Murder , and Snowpiercer , never squares the film’s satirical means with its sentimental ends, he at least throws the weight of his considerable filmmaking talent behind both.
Cowriter (with Jon Ronson, "Frank")/director Bong Joon Ho's ("Memories of Murder," "Snowpiercer") latest was compared to "E.T." after its premiere at Cannes, but be warned, this is not a movie for children.
Genre fans will of course know Bong Joon-ho from the consistently intense Memories of Murder (2003), the wonderfully weird The Host (2006), the subtly disturbing Mother (2009), and the twisted sci-fi masterpiece Snowpiercer (2013) — and if you don’t know these films yet, well, you’re in for a good time someday.
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As with his fantastic 2006 monster mash-up The Host, Bong knows how to sneak a bigger allegorical message into his manic whirligig celluloid contraption—Okja feels like Fast Food Nation as directed by Terry Gilliam with The Smiths’ Meat is Murder playing on the soundtrack.
Okja is basically an R-rated kids' movie that remains exciting and engaging enough throughout, with brutal images of animal slaughtering that will both remind the audience of Fast Food Nation and perhaps even convince them to turn vegetarian.
What begins as a tranquil buddy movie finishes up in the blood-soaked slaughterhouse where Okja is due to end her days; it’s as though My Neighbour Totoro had morphed into Fast Food Nation.
While it starts with the gentle human-animal dynamics of “Babe,” it eventually arrives at the polemics of “Fast Food Nation,” revealing a movie eager to please and editorialize at the same time.
The climactic slaughterhouse scene reaches beyond the urgency of Upton Sinclairs The Jungle and Eric Schlossers Fast Food Nation .
Fans of Memories of Murder (2003) and Mother (2009) will be pining with me for those films’ acidic nastiness, lyrical ambivalence and CGI-free scenery, and mourning how the Korean New Wave, of which Bong was an integral figure, devolved so quickly into a mini-Hollywood, complete with hard drives doing most of the heavy lifting.
The next day, Uncle Mundo (Yoon Je Moon, "Mother") struggles up the hill and is greeted warmly, but he's the first to arrive of a team there to 'check on' Okja, a team which includes Mirando spokesman Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), the TV host of 'Magical Animals.' Heebong takes Mija to visit her parents' graves and presents her with a golden pig, but Mija learns it's a ruse and when she runs back to their home, Okja and the Mirando contingent are gone.
Genre fans will of course know Bong Joon-ho from the consistently intense Memories of Murder (2003), the wonderfully weird The Host (2006), the subtly disturbing Mother (2009), and the twisted sci-fi masterpiece Snowpiercer (2013) — and if you don’t know these films yet, well, you’re in for a good time someday.
He established his tonal aesthetic in three previous films, “The Host” (2006), “Mother” (2009) and “Snowpiercer” (2014) , which remarkably blend cartoonish comedy, crisp action and considerable pathos for his characters.
Since 2003 with his “Memories of Murder” and onto his absolutely gut-wrenching drama “Mother” in 2009, serving as both writer and director he constantly challenges us in unique and artful ways.
The gloomy concrete-and-ironwork facility where Okja's brothers and sisters are held suggests a concentration camp for animals; when key characters trek away from its main gates, Bong's compositions and texture palette evoke " Schindler's List " as well as George Miller's " Babe: Pig in the City ."
Okja the character is a digital creation, thanks to the work of visual effects supervisor Erik-Jan De Boer, whose previous work includes “Life of Pi” and “Babe: Pig in the City.”
Combining puppetry, hydraulics and CG visuals, Bong fleshed out his voluptuous leading lady with help from conceptual artist Hee Chul Jang, who also designed the monster in The Host, plus visual effects supervisor De Boer, who won an Academy Award for creating the tiger in Ang Lee's Life of Pi.
One of them, the gentle, galumphing sow Okja (impressively created through puppetry and CGI by Life of Pi FX wizard Erik-Jan De Boer), has peacefully bonded with farmer's granddaughter Mija (An Seo-hyun) and when earmarked for culling becomes a cause célèbre for Paul Dano's comically pacifist liberationists.
It is remarkable, really, how Joon Ho paints the horrific reality of factory farming with creatures created with CGI and a puppet rig (visual effects supervisor Erik-Jan De Boer,"Life of Pi").
Okja the character is a digital creation, thanks to the work of visual effects supervisor Erik-Jan De Boer, whose previous work includes “Life of Pi” and “Babe: Pig in the City.”
Plaudits to visual effects supervisor Erik-Jan de Boer, who won an Oscar for his work on Ang Lee’s Life of Pi and here brings creature-designer Hee Chul Jang’s beast to life in a manner that combines massive physical heft with cute and cuddly charm.
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From the anthropomorphic sentimentality of Babe to the slaughterhouse realities of Shaun Monson’s 2005 documentary Earthlings, Okja combines the holistic man-and-nature themes of a Studio Ghibli animation with the alarming food-industry revelations of Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret.
As you’d expect, he pushes the boundaries in every frame, occasionally going too far, as is the case with Gyllenhaal’s shameless overacting in a get up – topped by a pith helmet – that recalls Groucho Marx in “Animal Crackers.”