[CRITICAL] OKJA

Four years after Snowpiercer, Korean director Bong Joon-ho returns with Okja, but this time as a film minor too americanized.

The new film from Bong Joon-ho, Okja, marked by the controversy surrounding Netflix, due to their refusal to release the film in cinemas -was expected at the turn of the Cannes festival. However promising for a long first part, which reveals a relationship of friendship strong between the young Mija, and its “super-pig” Okja, which it has occupied for years, the film is driven by the following in a project ecologist of the most awkward. But above all, to the contrary, for example Snowpiercer (2013), or even Park Chan-wook with Stoker, the share of u.s. production here seems to take the hand on the cinematographic approach of the author is south Korean. Regardless of the freedom he claimed to have been on the part of Netflix, the end result seems to be less fine and subtle than what we book usually this small country in Asia.

Soon enough, the film takes on a tone of childlike, both in the relationship between Mija and Okja (to base of big hugs and games in the forest), that in her messages brought to the trowel. A speech green, which tends to denounce the inhuman methods in the slaughterhouses, brought in with so little finesse that it seems to apply only to converted to vegetarianism. Therefore, the wonderful aspect, which would have had to summon as much Spielberg as Miyazaki, fades. The problem resides more in form than in substance, since there are themes that are common to The Host, the masterpiece of the director. In the latter, the impact of toxic wastes on nature led to the creation of a monster. The strength of the film came from his human scale, with the rebuilding of a family, in the tragic and terror. In Okja, Bong Joon-ho tries to find just that touch of emotion with the feelings of Mija, ready to do anything to save his only friend. Unfortunately, this famous emotion, strangely difficult to feel between a human and his animal, is too often relegated behind gags boats (two distressing scenes around the poo of Okja) and the pseudo-political discourse advocated by a group of activists, against the confinement of animals.

“Okja lack of intentions to film and to sink into the heaviness of his speeches. “

Of course, Okja known to be effective as entertainment comic. But from such a filmmaker, it is particularly unfortunate to see it unable to offer real moments of cinema. A few action scenes, the insignificant – possibly an effective prosecution in a super market, but quickly shipped, and a tendency to rely on the players rather than the image (frame, photography, movements, etc.). Mainly Tilda Swinton, a more than convincing in this role of the CEO uncomfortable in his skin, and sadly pathetic, and Jake Gyllenhaal, in the long run far too excited, without forgetting, of course, Ahn Seo-hyun , friendly. D’Okja, especially with his final without originality, it is the feeling of a work, in part, impersonal as highly americanized, in the hollywood of the term – standard scenario with twists and turns predictable and smooth shape without any real creativity. Relatively formatted, and somewhat surprising, the film has caused much noise for not much, because it is forgettable as soon as the lights of the room switched back on or when you turn off the television screens.

Review published on may 19, 2017 at the Screening at the Cannes film Festival

Stone Siclier

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