Okja
What do you believe to be Humanity’s greatest trespass? One that, if God (or any divine being for that matter) is real, would grant us eternal damnation? In simpler terms-what’s the most evil thing you can think of?
I’d make a strong case for modern agribusiness, and by extension, Factory Farming. Let’s look at some statistics. Pigs. Some of the cutest animals on earth, in my opinion, so naturally, I immediately fell in love with this movie’s Okja. Did you know that in captivity for farming purposes, pigs mostly live to 5-6 months, before being slaughtered? This is when they reach the ideal market weight, and thus they are killed. Now, did you also know that a pigs potential life span can reach up to 15 years? That means that their life span’s are shortened, on average, by 96 percent? The same is true for Chickens, which live around 5 percent of their potential life span. World War One, and the subsequent World War Two, suffered the losses of over 90 MILLION soldiers. These are some of the most commemorated tragedies of all time, and for very good reason.
In comparison, 200 million animals are killed every 24 hours for agricultural purposes.
This isn’t counting sea life, keep in mind. Obviously, this isn’t intended to compare the separate slaughtering of millions to one another, but doesn’t it work to show just how much we over consume as a society, and what we’re willing to do to maintain our current status quo? In the 1950’s, a hamburger was around 3.9 ounces. Today, we’re sitting at a comfy 12 ounces. Yikes. Most of us are guilty of such overconsumption. We may not think we do, but a lot of us, perhaps on this app, participate in overindulgent, rather lavish lifestyles, which benefit off of the suffering of thousands of animals. I myself am very guilty of this. I’m a hypocrite. I shudder at the thought of being Vegan or even vegetarian, fully aware that it is whether you’re comfortable with it or not, the morally superior option. I am also aware of the fact that living without ever harming any animals of any kind is a ridiculous notion, and society is almost completely run on their suffering. But if you can, if you really can commit to it, be vegetarian. Be vegan. Attempt to speak out. Sources that do so are very often criticised, and I completely get it. Activists can be seen as annoying, and I completely get that groups like PETA go about it in very harmful ways. They push falsified claims that can harm similar, more ethical movements, and make animal activism seem like a joke. But if you can, do something. Maybe not something as big as the events portrayed in Okja-they’re extremely larger than life, after all-but just something.
Anyways Okja is an outstanding film which, whilst obviously not on par with Parasite, is at the very top tier of Bong Joon Ho’s work. An utterly stacked cast starring reliable stars like Jake Gyllenhaal, who is endlessly entertaining throughout, Paul Dano, who is definitely one of the best actors in SAG (wink wink nudge nudge) and Tilda Swinton as a delightfully devilish CEO. All brought together by a spectacular child performance by Ahn Seo-hyun, and one of my favourite aswell as one of the cutest CGI characters of all time, in the titular Okja. Shout out to Steven Yeun, who I was not aware was in this movie, and promptly laughed my ass off once I realised as such. Reminds me of this show he’s in, but I just can’t remember.. oh well. A stellar adventure which is beautifully woven together through a wonderful cast of characters, and is another highlight of the Bong Joon Ho hates capitalism Cinematic universe.