Okja

By: Alex Elias

Okja, a Netflix Original Movie, is the latest film by visionary writer/director Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer). It’s not your daughter’s fairy-tale adventure about a girl and her magical super pig. It is, for all intents and purposes, a fantasy dramatization of anti-meat industry propaganda. Okja’s dark, industrial cover far better describes the film than the trailers, which seem to make the film out to be a family-friendly adventure. Alas, Okja is not only rated R, but I would strongly caution against anyone under the age of thirteen years old from even seeing the film. It is extremely graphic and disturbing.

Okja is the story of a girl and her pig. Only, it’s not. In truth, it is the story is of the meat company Mirando, which in 2007 proposed a plan to send twenty-six genetically modified, adorable super-pigs to various cities around the world to be raised by talented farmers. After ten years, a competition would be held to showcase the best-raised pig; a marketing ploy meant to beguile the masses into believing Mirando’s new line of super-pigs are non-GMO, eco-friendly and the future of the industry. During these ten years, a young girl named Mija (Seo-Hyun Ahn) and her grandfather have been raising Okja who is a giant, lovable super-pig in the mountains of Korea. The film starts when Mirando execs come to take Okja back to Seoul and then onward to New York City for the competition. Mija refuses to accept that her grandfather had been lying to her for all this time, that they had purchased Okja off of Mirando, and rashly decides to pursue Mirando to Seoul, where, in a crazy turn of events, a group of self-proclaimed not-terrorists called the ALF (Animal Liberation Front) attempt to rescue Okja from Mirando. What follows after this can only be described as intense, exciting and highly…disturbing.

Okja features an all-star cast with names like Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, a wonderfully precious CG super pig named Okja and introduces Seo-Hyun Ahn as Mija. One of the best aspects of the film is the colorful character writing. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dr. Johhny Wilcox, a Steve Irwin type televised animal tamer who Mirando contracts to be their face of the super pig project. Dr. Johhny is an immature, drunk, self-obsessed, flamboyant madman who goes through many wonderfully emotive phases throughout the movie to which Gyllenhaal intentionally over-acts. Tilda Swinton plays Lucy Mirando, the publicly charismatic, privately evil, self-righteous, hunger-games-villain-esque CEO of Mirando industries to which Swinton delivers a calculating and riveting performance. The film is rife with over-the-top variants of stereotypical character, and simultaneously takes itself both too seriously and yet not seriously enough. Actress Shirley Henderson also has a noteworthy performance. She plays Jennifer, a PR person at Mirando. Shirley’s high-pitched voice and quick-manner of speaking, coupled with a wonderful performance, adds a lot of character to the scenes she’s in.

Like Snowpiercer, the CGI in Okja is top notch. And with an estimated budget of $50,000,000, they didn’t cut any expenses. Those pigs are really adorable – and that’s perhaps what makes it all the more disturbing when things start to take a turn for the worst.

The music in Okja, by composer Jaeil Jung, is particularly worth mentioning. Specifically, some of the more fast-paced, hectic scenes and montages are aided tremendously by a comical, upbeat, quick tempo klezmer tune. This was a good decision and made those scenes fun and memorable.

But what happened to this fun? Half-way through the film, that’s when the fun stops and the agenda starts poking through. And once it reared its ugly head, the film never managed to recover. Books are divided into chapters and in a similar way, Okja can be divided into arcs. The film starts as it’s advertised – a beautiful and endearing relationship between girl and super-pig and their adventures in the mountains of Korea. In the second arc, Mija desperately chases after Okja where she meets new allies and experiences some of the cruel realities of the world. But then comes the third arc where Bong Joon Ho completely loses control of his narrative and the anti-meat industry propaganda shines through in all its disturbingly graphic glory.

Have you ever asked a vegetarian why they don’t eat meat? Sometimes you’ll hear one tell you that they stopped eating meat after watching a documentary on how the animals are treated or a similar documentary on how meat is prepared. Well, I suspect a new, third response may be, “I saw Okja.” And it’s hard to imagine that this wasn’t what Bong Joon Ho was going for because things get so dark as the film progresses, that it made my companion and I extremely uncomfortable. We went from enjoying the colorful characters, the adorable pigs, the quick pacing and plot twists, to squirming in our chairs wishing we were anywhere other than in the theater. Yes. It’s that disturbing. And while the actors did a marvelous job of being convincing in their roles (namely Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton) you have to suspect they were very aware of the true intent of the film – not only to entertain us, but to scare us into never wanting to eat meat again.

Personally, while I have no issues with documentaries spreading awareness as to the cruel realities of inhumane industries such as the Meat Industry, I believe that hiding such a film inside of another (particularly a fantasy movie with a trailer that makes it appear like a family-movie) is a pretty sneaky thing to do. While I did ultimately enjoy the movie, I can literally see right now the outcry that will come from mothers who decide to watch Okja with their kids thinking it will be what its advertised to be, only to see some truly barbaric acts. Their children will be scarred for life. I’m honestly not even exaggerating. DO NOT WATCH OKJA WITH CHILDREN.

All in all, with Okja director Bong Joon Ho has proven once again that he has some truly visionary ideas about film and executes them in a fantastical way that often feels larger than the screen its presented on. The characters in the movie are dynamic, multi-dimensional and humorous. The story is a good one. The twists and pacing are all right where they should be in a good movie but it just loses itself to its agenda that goes way further down the dark path than I think anyone was expecting. A path from which it never returned. This is not the brothers Grimm’s fairy tale adventure about a girl and her magical super pig.