Bong Joon-ho: ​‘Okja is about what’s hap­pen­ing to us in real life’

The apoc­a­lypse may one day arrive in the shape of giant mon­sters, nat­ur­al dis­as­ters or our own readi­ness to press down on the nuclear hot but­ton. The new movie by Kore­an direc­tor Bong Joon-ho, Okja, looks at a world in which food is in short sup­ply, and pon­ders how our rela­tion­ship with ani­mals will alter.

It tells the sto­ry of a pig-like crea­ture who is snatched from its young own­er, Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun), by Lucy Miran­do (Til­da Swin­ton), the head of a nefar­i­ous cor­po­ra­tion. We spoke to Bong about polit­i­cal alle­go­ry, artis­tic col­lab­o­ra­tion, and whether he sees him­self as the new Steven Spielberg.

LWLies: There’s a great quote by Quentin Taran­ti­no who said that you’re like Spiel­berg in his prime – in that sense, is this your E.T.?

Bong: I’m not sure, but it’s a great hon­our for me to be described like that. E.T. is a ter­rif­ic film but I’m more of a fan of Spielberg’s films from the ​’70s, like Close Encoun­ters, Jaws, Duel and The Sug­ar­land Express.

What is the rea­son for hav­ing Okja cen­tre on a child?

With Okja, I’m try­ing to tell a sto­ry about the rela­tion­ship between peo­ple and ani­mals. It’s about the beau­ty that can exist between them, but also the worst aspects of that dynam­ic. It delves into the rela­tion­ship between a young child and her ani­mal. For me, these were the best con­di­tions to tell this type of sto­ry. This was the best per­spec­tive to take.

Is this cen­tral rela­tion­ship based on any­thing from your own life?

I’ve nev­er raised a lion or a hip­po, or ever helped ani­mals escape from a zoo. But, grow­ing up, I had pets at home. Cur­rent­ly I have a dog. Just hav­ing a pet is its own spe­cial expe­ri­ence. The feel­ing that you share this pet and all the moments and details of that expe­ri­ence have fed into the film, but noth­ing beyond that.

Do you find that good mon­ster movies have to be metaphor­i­cal to work?

My film The Host was prob­a­bly more in the clas­sic sci-fi mould. There’s def­i­nite­ly a lot of metaphor asso­ci­at­ed with the sto­ry. But for Okja, not so much. It’s based on what’s hap­pen­ing to us in real life, specif­i­cal­ly regard­ing aspects of the food industry.

The world at the moment is in a strange and scary state. Does that make it more dif­fi­cult to make films which com­ment on reality?

I agree that sci-fi sto­ries and real life are almost merg­ing togeth­er. The news that we read often feels like fan­ta­sy. Okja, I think, is a reac­tion to the idea that how the fan­tas­ti­cal sto­ries we tell in cin­e­ma are more and more con­nect­ed to this every­day reality.

Do you think with this film and Snow­piercer you’ve become a more explic­it­ly polit­i­cal filmmaker?

I think Snow­piercer is more overt­ly polit­i­cal than Okja. In that film, the car­riages of a train rep­re­sent frag­ments of the class sys­tem. Okja is pri­mar­i­ly a love sto­ry between Mija and Okja – the girl and the ani­mal. The things that come between them and end up tear­ing them apart could be seen as the polit­i­cal ele­ment to the film.

Do you think it’s right for ani­mals to be killed for the pur­pos­es of film? 

Whether it’s vio­lence against ani­mals or peo­ple in films, the strength or weak­ness of the moment is, for me, less impor­tant than the why of it all. It depends on the themes and the con­tent. And also the type of sto­ry the film­mak­er is try­ing to tell.

When you made Snow­piercer, Til­da Swin­ton took a keen inter­est in the design and the ideas behind the movie. Was the dynam­ic sim­i­lar here?

On this film, Til­da was involved from the very begin­ning. She was instru­men­tal in the cre­ation of her char­ac­ter Lucy Miran­do. The world that we see is the back­ground to the entire sto­ry. Even though she’s cred­it­ed as a co-pro­duc­er she’s much more than that. It’s a cre­ative part­ner­ship that runs much deep­er. We had many dis­cus­sions about sto­ry and the char­ac­ter. But also we would con­verse about cur­rent events, like what was hap­pen­ing in South Korea, the US and the UK. Inevitably those dis­cus­sions found their way into the sto­ry as a sep­a­rate lay­er to the over­all arc.

Can a direc­tor ever have com­plete cre­ative con­trol over a movie?

In gen­er­al, it’s the job of a direc­tor to achieve cre­ative con­trol. Specif­i­cal­ly with Okja, it wasn’t a small bud­get, but due to my part­ners and pro­duc­ers, I was able to attain the vision I set out to achieve. Even in the last stages of the edit­ing, there were no con­flicts. I was able to do what I thought was nec­es­sary to tell the sto­ry. I didn’t have the pres­sure to hit a cer­tain cer­tifi­cate and I enjoyed the priv­i­lege of final cut. So yes, I had a good expe­ri­ence work­ing on this film.

When is the moment that an idea becomes a movie?

When you know that you want to turn this idea in your head into some­thing real. As far as com­ing up with a thought, or com­ing up with a con­cept, it’s an instan­ta­neous process. You can move from no film to film with­in the space of a sec­ond. The time it takes to write the screen­play and then to pre­pare the film for pho­tog­ra­phy, that’s obvi­ous­ly a lot longer. I like to take my time in pre-pro­duc­tion. But con­vinc­ing myself that an idea could blos­som into a great film – that’s just a flash.

Okja is released in select­ed cin­e­mas and on Net­flix on 28 June, 2017. Read our review.