Mickey 17: A Satirical Sci-Fi Spectacle from Bong Joon-ho
"Mickey 17," the third English-language film by Korean director Bong Joon-ho, premiered out of competition at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival. Following "Snowpiercer" and "Okja," this film is considered by most critics to be the best of his career. Despite the difficulties during post-production, disputes with producers, and obvious editing cuts, the film is fully ready for release, and the production incidents had a minimal impact. It seems that Bong Joon-ho himself wanted to reduce the film's length to make it comfortable to watch.
Mickey Barnes is a real loser who is very tired of doing dirty work. He owes a lot of money to the "big guys" and has found no other way out than to flee to another planet. Mickey not only became a member of the expedition to the snowy Niflheim, where the wealthy Jerome Marshall dreams of founding a colony, but he voluntarily became a "disposable." This type of employee is sent on deadly, most dangerous missions with the risk to life because after death he is still cloned, having previously uploaded all the knowledge and memory of the previous "disposable." Mickey Barnes has already survived 17 "resurrections" and finally began to ask eternity questions about life and death.
"Mickey 17" is based on the science fiction novel "Mickey 7" by Edward Ashton, which was conditionally inspired by the "Star Trek" series and the demonstration of teleports in it. Bong Joon-ho slightly modified the plot of the novel because a page-by-page screen adaptation would stretch into a whole series, which the director did not have much desire to undertake. Although there were prerequisites for the series, because the tonality and rhythm of the plot of "Mickey 17" requires a continuation. The fantastic world invites you to explore many sociological, political, and interpersonal nuances, so I would like a picture longer than 2 hours and 19 minutes. Alas, Bong Joon-ho diligently trimmed the footage.
Contrary to speculation surrounding post-production, the Korean director never had a conflict with the producers: the latter tried to find a suitable premiere window, and the final editing was not a stumbling block and remained with the main director. Bong Joon-ho changed the image of the literary Mickey and the universe surrounding him. The hero, instead of a history teacher (an unnecessary profession in the world of Earth/Midgard, where physicists and engineers are held in high esteem), became a simple hard worker, a spineless outsider. Mickey is ready to pull his head deeper into his shoulders, almost disappearing behind the collar of his windbreaker, if only no one touches him. This kind of people are simply ideal candidates for "disposables." Before signing up for a deadly mission, Mickey does not even read the conditions, and only when the matter is done, he understands all the horrors that await him in Niflheim.
Mickey's injuries and deaths are shown comically for a while. Mission employees first send him as a pioneer to the icy desert of a new planet to personally test for the presence of deadly viruses for which vaccines will be needed. The experimental Mickey can still be printed on a 3D printer and continue research. He will endure everything, will not say "no," will not ask unnecessary questions and will continue to live every day as the last. He has no will of his own and a sense of the future – Mickey, in fact, was a "disposable" on Earth. Despite the clearly disastrous attitude to life, he has a girl, Nusha (Naomi Ackie), on board the ship, strong-willed, militant – the complete opposite of him, ready to protect him from any trouble. She unconditionally accepts the clones of her beloved, so Barnes is just lucky here. Maybe that's why he doesn't complain. And yet the 17th version of Mickey is overtaken by an existential crisis and burnout. Lying at the bottom of some pit in the snow, waiting for him to be eaten by huge slugs (the indigenous inhabitants of Niflheim), he realizes that he is not ready to die.
Like in "Parasite," Bong Joon-ho relies on the theme of social inequality. The heroes of "Mickey 17" are the same disenfranchised and worthless people trying to survive in a world of corporations and billionaires endowed with power. The antagonist Jerome Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) looks at the entire subordinate crew as "disposables," and sees women as incubators, suitable only for continuing the human race on a new planet. While Marshall's henchmen are ready to kiss his feet, he feeds them synthetic protein from the remains of dead missionaries: Bong Joon-ho has raised the stakes since "Snowpiercer," where the inhabitants of the tail cars were fed with ground cockroaches. Ruffalo perfectly portrays a hot-tempered, greedy clown in a tie who runs for comfort to his wife Gwen (Toni Collette), if anything goes wrong. She will always calm him down, always tease his fat ego once again. Both, of course, personify a specific capitalist evil of the real world.
As a satirist, Bong Joon-ho has a great time with this couple to the fullest, and he allows himself more pointed ridicule than in "Parasite" and even in "Snowpiercer." It is not difficult to read what real media figure is glimpsed in Jerome Marshall (all of whose supporters wear red caps), but his presence should be thanked not to the director, but rather to the actor Ruffalo and his improvisation. So what about Mickey 17? Death will not come to him there, in the snow. Instead, he will receive Mickey 18 as a voluntary-compulsory partner. The duplicate is not ready to tolerate the second role and even intends to get rid of the predecessor, but the conflict quickly fades away. Still, Mickey 17 and Mickey 18 are the same Mickey Barnes, no better or worse. Such mutual consent turns out to be the most durable weapon in the fight against the capitalist machine. In the end, having made friends with himself, you can at least move mountains, even saddle a shaggy slug.
The canon of social drama, Bong Joon-ho's favorite genre, is deeply hidden under action and black comedy. "Mickey 17" is an art-mainstream potpourri of various styles that bring a motley narrative to one denominator: when those who have nothing to lose join forces, evil has no chance.
