Oscar winner Bong Joon-ho says Mickey 17 demagogue not drawn from present leaders

BERLIN – South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s villain in Mickey 17, a demagogic politician played by American actor Mark Ruffalo, was based on past dictators, but might seem familiar to viewers because “history always repeats itself”, the Oscar winner said in Berlin.

“He has, in a comical way, all the faces of the bad politicians we’ve experienced,” Bong told journalists via a translator on Feb 15 at the Berlin International Film Festival.

He made history at the 2020 Oscars when Parasite, a dark social satire about the gap between rich and poor in modern Seoul, became the first non-English language film to win the best picture award, the movie industry’s highest honour.

His new science-fiction dark comedy, starring English actor Robert Pattinson, is being shown in the festival’s Special non-competition section.

“I made this character drawing on my inspiration from the past, and as history always repeats itself, it might seem like I’m referring to someone in the present,” Bong said.

Based on the novel Mickey7 by American author Edward Ashton, the film follows Pattinson as the working-class Mickey Barnes, who unknowingly signs up to make his living by repeatedly dying.

“Although it’s a story of the future, it seems like a story that could happen in the present or the past,” Bong said.

For young people in the audience, what is now science fiction could one day be a situation they experience, he added.

The director said that Mickey 17 is his first love story, and that it was his life goal to make films of all genres, with one possible exception. “I am a bit scared of musicals,” he said.

Mickey 17, which also stars Toni Collette, Naomi Ackie and Steven Yeun, begins its cinema roll-out on Feb 28 in South Korea, and in other countries from March 5. REUTERS