Okja

I was conned by Okja, i thought i was skipping through Netflix found a cute film to watch on a Sunday, i had chocolate and coffee. I should of read the blurb. Okja from the outside looks like a cute foreign film about a girl who befriends a big pig like creature and they go of and explore the world together, no, Okja is about the manslaughter of animals around the world and asks the viewer where do we draw the line on what we eat. I know its is not what i was expecting and i regret (kind of) my decision of watching it.

I am traumatised, i sobbed like a little girl, although i am a little girl… Never mind the point is the story plays on our issue as humans that we provide for ourselves first and take nothing else into consideration. The start of the film is cute, its similar to a foreign nature film with a little girl playing with an animal in a rural area with no technology just beautiful landscape. However as the film progresses from cuteness of the rural area to a harsh corporate world that is our reality. It starts of with a man dressed in a shabby suit who looks very out of place when he comes to visit, with his new technology as he looks and scans Okja. After this more men come to visit Okja and to get Mila to leave Okja her grandfather tricks her into going to visit her parents grave (Harsh) and when she returns Okja has left.

From this she decides she must chase after Okja and get her mutant lovable pig back, so she travels to Seoul, where she destroys a corporate building by breaking the glass of an office runs in to find Okja being shoved in a van at the bottom of the building and then somehow manged to escape (it doesn’t make sense to me either). When she gets to the bottom she runs after the van and manages to keep up with a vehicle moving at least at 30 mph but she does and jumps on top, at this point ‘terrorists’ arrive and try to steal Okja but really there are a protective animal organisation trying to save Okja and million others mutant lovable pigs. The ‘terrorists’ manage to ram the ram with Okja in and get Okja into there super cool black patent van with Mila as well. These are apparently the good guys however they come of as extreme the film doesn’t show the between just from one extreme to the other. As Mila doesn’t speak English another man on board translates but tricks Mila into agreeing with the plan as he twists the translation to suit him. Okja is sent of to America for testing underground  within the corporate world.

When Okja arrives in New York she is taken underground, we can see what is happening through Okja point of view as she is abused for her meat and is forced to mate with a bigger scarier animal version of mutant loveable Okja. Mila at this point has also been swarmed into this world and made to be an advocate for the company who is trying to slaughter Okja, but its not all bad they are planning for Okja and Mila to be reunited for a promo of there company, I know delightful. Remember the ‘terrorists’ from before they are now here to save Okja and get Mila and Okja out of there however things do not go to plan as there are armed forces how batter the ‘terrorists’ and Okja is now captured once again and is being sent of to the slaughter house.

The slaughter house is portrayed as a dark gloomy isolated area full of mutant -not lovable- pigs and Okja, the seriousness of the situation kicks in at this point as Mila runs around this slaughterhouse factory we see animals hanging, meat production lines, the clinical killing of the animals. The shock and horror of this situation is insinuated through the heightened sounds within the factory. The people working there are portrayed as cold and clinical. Okja then arrives to the clinical killing machine with the man lining up the gun against Okja’s head, Mila screams at them to stop and proceeds to show a picture of Okja and her as babies hoping to play to the mans sympathy so he doesn’t kill Okja, however the big nasty boss has now arrived and orders for Okja to be killed, Mila clearly distressed at this point throws a pure 100% gold pig at the nasty women bosses feet, this tiny gold pig with no life and no soul is worth more to her than the life of the mutant loveable pig ( at this point I was crying and I’m only slightly ashamed)

Mila and Okja are told they will be taken home to where they came from however as they walk out we see the other millions of mutant -non lovable- pigs in the yard lining up for slaughter. A mother and father of a little baby mutant – very lovable- pig push the baby through the fence to get out, Okja picks the baby up in its mouth and hides the little baby. Their world seemingly returns to bliss in there own rural yard as if they have forgotten what they have been through in New York, however this is not the end. After the credits have rolled we see the two leaders of the ‘terrorist’ group emerge out of the office of the slaughter house into an empty yard with no more mutant – non lovable- pigs there. This is symbolic of if we carry on the way we are with eating animals we will end up with no animals left, something has to change.

*-Watch with risk-*

The reason I have explained the story line in full is I wanted to explore there narrative arc and how the film progresses from one point to the next, I wanted to focus in on the components of the story and how they fit together to make a successful and interesting film. Within Okja the narrative arc dips and rises, giving us hope and then snatching it away again, all within keeping the audience interested in the story and wanting to know what happens next.

This way of story telling to me is new and innovative and something that I want to take on into my own short film, I can now appreciate how a narrative works together to make a successful film and how I can edit my own short film to focus on the narrative and the story.