To the stars: Bong (left) and Pattinson posing as they arrive for the screening of ‘Mickey 17’ at the Berlin Film Festival. — AP
INTER-PLANETARY space travel and the vanity of tech billionaires like Elon Musk are the subject of acclaimed South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s satirical new film Mickey 17 which will be shown at the Berlin film festival.
The writer and director of the Oscar-winning 2019 hit Parasite returns to screens with a darkly comic take on the sci-fi genre starring British actor Robert Pattinson as Mickey, an intrepid but accident-prone space explorer.
The film tells “a story of the future but it seems like it could also happen in the present or the past”, Bong said at the Berlin Film Festival Saturday.
The plot revolves around a megalomaniac billionaire with a resemblance to Musk – played with brio by Avengers star Mark Ruffalo – who boards a spaceship travelling to colonise an icy planet in a not-too-distant future.
“Mark Ruffalo is a character who embodies the dictators of the past who we’ve experienced,” said Bong, who adapted the book Mickey7 by writer Edward Ashton.Mickey is a struggling working-class passenger known as an “expendable” who is chosen to undertake all the most dangerous missions aboard the vessel.
When he dies – in various grisly fashions – Mickey can be recreated again using a human 3D printer.Pattinson said he enjoyed playing characters who have “an incredibly complicated philosophical situation they have to deal with”.
“I think there’s something quite moving with Mickey where he is trying to process what he is and what he’s made out of, but also at the same time has a kind of relationship with all of his previous selves,” he said.
“I think it’s actually a question that most people have to deal with at one point or another. Basically asking why do I exist, but having quite a silly character trying to consider it.”
Musk, the South African-born Tesla boss, has spent billions of dollars developing rockets at his SpaceX company to send a manned mission to Mars by 2030, with interplanetary travel seen by him as crucial for humanity’s survival.
Bong said he “had some faces in mind” when creating the Ruffalo’s character, but he was based on “bad politicians... from the past” rather than anyone at present.
“But history always repeats itself, so (the film) seems to cover current events as well,” he said.
Mickey 17 will be released first in South Korea on Feb 28 before appearing in cinemas internationally from March 5. — AFP
