Bong Joon-Ho On “Mickey 17” And Why Humans Keep Making The Same Mistakes – Even In The Future

Bong, you are really great at finding the balance between social commentary and entertainment, reminding the audience of the darkest times in human history but we’re also laughing along the way. I want to ask you what is your process of bringing these themes together and how you managed to condense it into under two hours.

Bong: When I write or shoot a film it’s not like I think about how to balance it, I don’t put them on a scale and try to weigh or find the right mix of the two. My primary goal is to always entertain the audience because that in itself is such an effort. How do I make the audience not want to pull out their phones for two hours? How do I tie them to their seats and just focus on my screen? Hitchcock was really about that as well. 

With the other social-political layers of the story, I kind of want the audience to just focus on the entertainment and the film when they’re watching it, so when they go home – or just before bed when they’re lying down I just want them to think about it for like a minute. I want them to be absorbed in what they’re seeing in theatres and then afterwards kind of wonder, “Oh maybe that’s what that meant, maybe that’s actually quite similar to my own situation.” You know like a small afterthought.

I did feel that, I was blessed to be able to see the film twice and the first time I was really entertained, it was really funny – however the second time I felt like I got way more of the symbolism that had been dropped in and it kind of just like took over my brain for a full day. So I feel like you really do leave with thoughts constantly from the film, which I think is fantastic.

Bong: You are my ideal audience.