The transitional phase of the great film master

Fads/fascinations pass, and with them language as a handy tool to emphasize and additionally articulate sometimes subtler and sometimes completely naked turmoil. Some time ago, even at the level of everyday communication, the word "narrative" crept into the language, and now the focal semantic position is occupied by "plenum". In this regard, it must be noted how "transition" was simply lost from those same metaphorical addresses, and with it, alas, those famous, somewhat irritating and ubiquitous "transition losers". In the criticism of the most resounding cinematic novelty in our country, "transition" is necessary in another, let's call it a lateral sense, and it will be useful for us to clarify the context (or "context"), which is another of the semantic and conceptual concepts that in the last quarter of a century rested on our overburdened and (from the weight) hunched metaphorical backs.

To put it simply, "transition" is part of creating as full, as eloquent and as precise a context as possible in the story of the scope of triple Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho's latest film. The context is necessary in order to understand with the greatest possible patience and benevolence what he was trying to do and what he managed to do in the film. Mike 17. Before us is a satirical dystopia, as expected, filled with criticism of capitalism. The template from which the novel is based is Evard Ashton's, but the rather free approach to the adaptation of the plot is highlighted by the change of title: Ashton's novel is called Mike 7, and the movie Bong John Hoa Mike 17 (mickey 17), because John Ho just wanted to kill said Mickey ten more times. And poor Mickey is an unlucky loser who, after another entrepreneurial failure, flees from a bloodthirsty and sadistic greengrocer from Earth to a colony in far space owned by a despised, yet very agile and noisy congressman. Mickey, however, carelessly and too quickly, without reading the fine print of the contract he signed, agreed to be a consumable of the company, and as such, whenever and for whatever reason he is needed, he is sacrificed in various missions, then recycled and returned to his rapidly expendable tasks. The crowning part of the plot begins when two Mickeys collide due to an error in the system - Mickey 17, miraculously survived, and the next clone Mickey 18 (both in the interpretation of a surprisingly subtle and relaxed Robert Pattison), and all this according to the tried and tested Hollywood pattern of the "odd couple" (odd couple), that proven effective flywheel above all in comedies of confusion. All of that works quite well, it gives the film the dynamism characteristic of an expertly tailored Hollywood studio film, which this one and this one Mike 17 it certainly is. If the dimension of the plot and the main part of the story is clear, and Bong Joon Ho won the hearts of moviegoers precisely because of his finely balanced concern for both the narrative and visual aspects of the film, then we finally arrive at the place of the head-on collision between this truly great author and the concept of "transition". Mike 17 is without further ado a film of transition, but transition within the creativity and oeuvre of Bong Joon Ho: after the masterpiece Parasitic it was simply necessary to find a "project" that would amortize the creative decline after that truly transformative creative experience (and the history of film reminds us every now and then that sincere film lovers have to squeeze out extra patience for their favorite authors: it is inevitable that after a masterful creative episode - as an extremely illustrative example, take Coppola after Apocalypse today - a creative crisis occurs). In this regard Mike 17 is undeniably a film in its place, a noticeable respite, an evident tapping in place, a clear example of regrouping on the fly, and it's a good thing because this film has a lot to offer. It is, let us add, an independent work and an important novelty of the cinematographic repertoire, which, with its dynamic and finely honed storytelling, represents a kind of safety net before a new rush of creatively expansive and more unique creations with the help of film language.

If, therefore, Mikija 17 we position it on the level of a transitional film (in a personal-individual sense), at the point of a necessary and common-sense rest before a bolder leap into something really fascinating (and which Bong Joon Ho will surely give us in due course), we are left with an effective repertoire film on the border between the cinema and arthouse film experience, that is, between the satisfaction of the artistic essence on the one hand and the concrete benefit from the cinema box office on the other. And how, in spite of its truly seductive colorfulness, Mike 17 however, in the first place it addresses a more mature and "watched" audience, we get the impression of the easily noticeable apartness of this film in relation to the recent competition, which consists of the clumsy and hysterically eclectic gibberish of Oscar favorites, the increasingly exhausted horror, always clearly profiled animated content for children and the new surges of Marvel, which cannot admit that it is on its knees and in a creative knockdown. Following that conceptual thread, it can be said that it is Mike 17 at the same time a work worthy of the possibilities and past work of its main author and, on the other hand, a healthy and proper film with a commercial sub-profile. In about 140 minutes, Bong Joon Ho finds space to include self-references, so that, even if we leave aside dystopia as a sub-genre common content of this film and the achievement Icebreaker (Snowpiercer) of the Okja (Okja), Mike 17 it is understood as a scathing condemnation of capitalism, and, on that track, it harmoniously builds on Parasitic. However, it is necessary to note the author's need to fight for some additional maneuvering space and avoid the trap of always slippery mannerism, and the criticism of capitalism is given here with a clear admixture of almost comic book caricature, with the fact that Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette, who play ossified archetypal settings, managed to move this film away from too easy mockery of Trump, Mask and related themes.

On the other hand, the motif of replicants, i.e. doubling (on the fly Mike 17 evokes an association with a brilliant comedy Four as one directed by Harold Ramis, with Michael Keaton in all four roles), there is also the motif of "anticipated plagiarism" by Pierre Bayard from his book of the same name, in which Bayard points out "thinking about creativity, i.e. how the creativity of a writer, who in a shorter or longer period is ahead of his contemporaries, often rests on the inspiration of works that will be created, and sometimes on authors who have not yet been born. The greatest creators, we will see, were often - which is their strength and weakness at the same time - plagiarists through anticipation".

Just as Mickey plagiarizes his already deceptive essence from issue to issue, from clone to clone, Bong Joon Ho somehow plagiarized his three previous films, which is a legitimate move, perhaps one of the more valid and tangible proofs of authorship. Let's also mention that the film image of Darius Hondji (director of photography and in the well-known classics Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, Seven...) with its vivid colors and saturation of colors, it reaches a high level of artistry, which transforms the grayness of dystopia into a more relaxed vision of an anticipated plagiarized future (which seems to be already largely unfolding), and we again come across striking homages to Emir Kusturica (especially in the segment of the frenetic ham-ham rusvaja during the congressman's conference for fans and the media, but also in terms of the music that accompanies the end of the film).