Bong Joon-Ho's Okja starts in typically biting, off-the-wall style: the gloriously creepy Nancy Mirando - played by Tilda Swinton with braces and shocking white hair - swans about a stage spouting corporate platitudes ("core values") as she is cheered on by hordes of adoring spectators. Before long, Mirando tells us "We've successfully produced 26 miracle piglets by non-forced, natural mating". We soon learn that these piglets will be sent to 26 farmers around the world to be reared, becoming the ancestors of a new breed of super pig. Wonderful, this is all sounds like reasonably pleasant, ethical stuff.
Hop forward ten years and we are with one of the aforementioned super pigs, bumbling its way through the Korean countryside with Mija, the daughter of one of the 26 farmers. Here, the seamlessness with which the CGI super pig Okja - a distinctly cuddly creature which would be best described as some sort of a hippo-pig hybrid - is rendered as a part of its environment is remarkable. Frolicking amidst the verdant hues of the forest, captured gorgeously by cinematographer Darius Khondji, we feel Okja's every step. To put it simply, I was convinced of there being a large pig type creature there with Mija.
Throughout the film, this idyllic depiction of Okja's home is juxtaposed with the grim, invasive corporate world of the Mirando corporation. This is where the satire is really cranked up. Firstly, we have some seriously turned up to 11 performances which are intermittently successful: Jake Gyllenhaal is the moustache faced, wildlife TV presenter Johnny Wilcox who is constantly showing an uncomfortable amount of thigh; Tilda Swinton is back in a Hail, Caesar!-esque role, playing the Mirando sisters; and Paul Dano plays Jay, the head of the somewhat cultish ALF (Animal Liberation Front), doing something similar to the There Will Be Blood thing. These slightly hit-and-miss performances are, importantly, backed up by an entertainingly irreverent Jon Ronson script ("all edible, except the squeal") which when combined, injects things with a healthy dose of fairly unforgiving political commentary.
As is often the case with Bong Joon-Ho, and Korean cinema in general, Okja is tonally all-over-the-place. This isn't something I necessarily have a problem with (I love the offbeat comedy in Memories of Murder for example), but here I wasn't too fond of the freewheeling style that, for me, resulted in a lack of focus. Regardless, Okja has plenty to admire; combining Spielbergian creature feature wonder and politically charged satire, Bong achieves a rambling yet potent cacophony of a film that despite not quite adding up, is worth a watch.
This is part of a series of posts I have creatively titled "Favourites" where I write about an unashamedly personal selection of my favourite films.
We Need to Talk About Kevin - directed by Lynne Ramsey - is a gloriously nihilistic parable of parenthood, unafraid to ask some unsettling questions about the complex relationship between a parent and their children. What responsibility does a parent have for the actions of their offspring? Is a parent's love unconditional? Of course, this film offers an extreme example, but it strikes me as coming very close to unearthing some of the deepest darkest fears of every parent.
The film is structured without any discernible pattern - jumping from past to present - adding to the spiky sense of disquiet that is present throughout. We cut between the aftermath of some terrible unknown, following the gaunt ghost-like figure that is Eva - the titular Kevin's mother - and three stages of Kevin's childhood, seen through the eyes of Eva. This disordered structure reflects the bewilderment of Eva's emotionally battered psyche, still seemingly incapacitated by the trauma inflicted by Kevin.
The visuals of the first portion of the film are stained red, aptly foreshadowing the bloodshed that is to come. Eva scrubs at red paint left on her house, bathes in a sea of tomato pulp at some sort of festival, and wakes up to a room tinged red by the light streaming through her curtains. This bold visual metaphor paints Eva as a woman full of guilt for what has happened - the blood is on her hands - a woman forever tainted by her role in what Kevin did.
As the sequences showing Kevin's upbringing are show in conjunction with what we come to learn must be the aftermath of something he has done, we see his development in a completely different light. Actions that would ordinarily be dismissed as harmless are laced with a more sinister edge. Our understanding that something bad is to come gives the film an irrepressible momentum that is central to its effectiveness. Observing the intricacies of Kevin's development is grimly compelling; as we watch the slow but sure progression towards the climax with morbid curiosity, the inevitability of the impending doom is gripping.
Just as enthralling is Swinton's portrayal of Eva's deterioration. She treats her impulsively satanic child with artificial affection that he sees right through. The film is full of excellent sequences detailing their extraordinary relationship as Kevin appears to purposely act badly in a perverse mission to spite her. He refuses to speak and deliberately soils his pants, cruelly toying with her emotions. Kevin is exhaustive; even resorting to what seems to be contrived good will towards his father, played with breezy optimism by John C. Reilly. The way in which Swinton portrays Eva's growing disbelief at the completeness of her son's hatred towards her is inspired; as his evil becomes apparent, she sinks into her self, painting a picture of a woman worn thin.
The film also plays as an excellently subtle denouncement of a middle class obsession with the appearance of happiness. It works in the tradition of other excellent films - American Beauty, Donnie Darko and Blue Velvet come to mind - exploring the unease that bubbles beneath the false suburban idyll that the characters attempt to create. A veneer of respectability is maintained at all costs, epitomised by the father's detached lightheartedness. They avoid the reality of their situation throughout, preferring to blindly search for some domestic utopia. After all, they never talk about Kevin.
