Okja: Netflix’s Prized Pig
Whilst Netflix’s latest venture, Okja is a dazzling gesture of cinematic auteurship, with its recent groundbreaking controversy in Cannes, Okja, the charming story of a girl and her attempt to rescue her pet GMO ‘super-pig’ from a giant meat production company and its megalomaniac CEO, has also become an overt demonstration of Netflix’s glowing intention to pave its own way in the future of cinema.
Whilst the imaginative plot is incredibly worthy of merit, it is director Bong Joon-ho’s auteurship that steers the film into brilliance. His influence over all aspects of the film not only demonstrates his considered directorial choices and meticulous artistic vision, but has allowed for the film to transcend the expected boundaries of a Netflix streaming film. The insistence of the director’s complete vision, under the guise of auteurship, a term conceived by the French New Wave during the last great cinematic revolution, will create such a legacy for Okja and Netflix. This project will become more than just a film — rather a filmic revolution, of sorts — with Bong Joon-ho’s successful auteurship acting as an impetus.
This is not incidental though — from the conception of the project, Netflix knew Okja had the potential to create shockwaves in the film industry, those that would reverberate back to Netflix, and more specifically, back to its ambitious future plans. The decision to gift Boon such creative freedom, as well as a substantially liberal budget, was an extremely intelligent, powerful, and deliberate, move — indeed, one that demands attention.
Effectively, Okja shouts to others in the film industry that Netflix will pay for the best actors and the best visual effects, if you bring them your ideas. Such a gesture is particularly significant when one considers other movie studios may not be so lenient with creative freedom and financial control. In fact, most traditional studios have a tendency to be overly cautious about backing more creative films and liberally gifting directors generous budgets. This is consequently why so many movie franchises and remakes are saturating the industry — their studios are unwilling to take financial and creative risks with new material and unfamiliar directors.
Through this, Netflix’s gesture and trust in director Bong Joon-ho’s auteurship means a lot more for the cinema industry as a whole, as well simply being instrumental in the creation of great cinema. Evidently, Okja ruptured the expected protocols of cinematic diffusion and thus, created an opportunity for significant development in the industry — one that may not be welcomed by all.
Such development could financially flip the film industry on its head, as Netflix has done with the TV industry. For example, whilst the TV streaming service has been relatively shunned from awards seasons in the previous years, it’s impossible to argue that Netflix’s streaming audience — 100 million subscribers in April 2017 — doesn’t push awards toward financial irrelevance, especially when one considers the actual popularity of their shows, over others on television. Netflix has effectively slid through a notoriously tough industry with ease and a popularity that terrifies the other, more traditional, TV production companies. In a similar manner, Netflix is now developing its role as the maverick of the film industry and we, as viewers, are begging for more.
For viewers, Okja is a fun and emotional film. For those in the film industry, it’s a statement of intent that’s almost impossible to ignore. Bong Joon-ho’s impressive auteurship in Okja and the management style of Netflix have created an opportunity for the cinema industry to develop, to grow stronger, to ensure a future for original and artistic pieces. Despite the critics and those who fear Netflix, we must remember that the industry needs change in order to survive. Great cinema is not recycled or safe, it is daring, inventive, imaginative. With Okja, Netflix brings a huge investment in the industry’s future and it must be commended for doing so.
