Okja: Big Love

The new scale on which Okja functions is abundantly evident from the moment it begins. Rather than opening with its core pair, the movie kicks off with a prologue that is as far removed from them as possible. In an old factory, Lucy Mirando (Swinton), garish in her attempts to appear approachable and polished, explains the superpig program to a group of journalists: twenty-six farmers from all over the world will each be given a special piglet to nurture for the next ten years, and at the end of that time, the most impressive specimen will be crowned as the best pig. The video that plays behind her is loaded with cute, popping graphics that boast a millennial pastel aesthetic, and the cinematography and accompanying score are similarly so smooth—so corporate—that it’s jarring when the film jumps ahead by a decade to reveal what has become of the superpiglet that was sent to South Korea. The visual language, which in the opening sequence trades in a glossy, commercial sense of artificiality, shifts dramatically when it depicts the Korean countryside where Okja lives with Mija and her grandfather Hee Bong (Byun Heebong), with wide, still shots bringing into focus a kind of serenity and languor that doesn’t exist in a city or at a press conference. Speaking about her company’s past, Lucy makes it clear that Mirando has been something of a destructive force—she notes that the walls of the factory are “stained with the blood of fine working men” and later recalls that the corporation dumped so much toxic waste into a lake that it caused it to explode (“The only lake ever to explode!”). There’s no such tension in Mija and Okja’s relationship—they’ve learned how to peacefully coexist, and the way in which Bong depicts them, emphasizing the natural beauty around them and letting shots hold still rather than trying to distract through bright colors and motion, makes that clear.

More than just being fun, this sequence establishes something crucial to understanding the film, as Mija chases after Okja and Mirando employees and ALF activists jockey for leverage over the unfolding chaos: Okja isn’t a tale of good versus evil. The ALF’s crusade to expose Mirando’s animal rights abuses leans in that direction, but that’s not Mija’s immediate concern. In fact, neither of the organizations orbiting around her is really “good”—Mirando certainly isn’t, given the way it treats livestock and its seeming disdain for both its employees and the collateral damage its facilities cause, but the ALF has its own problems. Though its members constantly make a fuss about being nonviolent, they still cause harm, both to themselves and to others. Silver (Devon Bostick), in an attempt to leave the smallest possible footprint on the planet, starves himself to the point of passing out. Their leader, Jay (Paul Dano), despite his sweet and sensitive demeanor, shows no hesitation in brutalizing one of their number for lying. And the lie, told by K (Steven Yeun), comes on the heels of the clearest indication that Mija has no interest in being a typical hero.

Nancy, who is nothing if not severe, is meant to represent the cruel, out-of-fashion side of Mirando’s past, whereas Lucy, with her devotion to soft colors and her adult braces, represents a new, more palatable future for the company. But it’s ultimately a facade—Lucy may publicly present Mirando as a more ethical, environmentally conscious company, but behind the curtain essentially nothing has changed, as the new policies she touts aren’t actually reflected in the corporation’s actions. At least Nancy, cruel though she may be, is honest. That, Bong seems to be saying, is preferable to Lucy’s simpering pandering. In the film’s final showdown, set in a bloody slaughterhouse with Okja on the chopping block, emotional pleas do nothing to sway Nancy to mercy. It’s only when money enters the equation that things change. In the world they—and we—live in, money is power, and even Mija isn’t exempt from that rule. Though, as a child, she is more innocent than the adults she encounters, Mija doesn’t escape unscathed from the capitalist world she finds herself in (nor is she totally removed from it to begin with; at the very start of the film, her concerns include upgrading their staticky old TV). In a similar vein, it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the biggest change that Mija has to make, rather than discovering the power of friendship or overcoming some innate fear, is to learn English, a “global language,” in order to better advocate for herself.