Not the time to die

Robert Pattinson and giant cosmic mokrits are fighting the new Trump in the film "Mickey 17" from the director of "Parasites" Pon Chjun Ho

The most long-awaited premiere of the festival was held on Berlinal-the film “Mickey 17”, whose release date was postponed several times because of the disagreement about the final installation between the director Pon Jong Ho and the Warner Bros. studio, and even the morning press screening was symbolic for twenty minutes. Was it worth the expectation of the candles and whether the first, completely shot in South Korea, could be called a success, says the film facelier Irina Karpova.

It all started with pasta. Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his bosom friend Timo (Stephen Yun) decided to open not a burger, but pasta - and burned out. The film begins with their fathies from creditors and the buzzing of a power plant, cutting the limb of even less successful debtors. Modern popular culture is looped: “parasites” if they did not inspire, then they undoubtedly influenced the “game in the squid”, and now, in the next “parasites” to the picture, Pon Jong Ho, the main character of Mickey literally gives himself to the organs to escape from lenders- Sadists. The unlucky businessman agrees to become a “consumable” in the colonial campaign of the odious congressman Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) in order to master and populate the distant planet Niflheim. This is a snowy and rocky plain with a howl of a plump wind and deadly viruses in the atmosphere. To find a vaccine for them, Mickey will have to die. And then die again. And then again.

In the book “Mickey 7” of the American science fiction writer Edward Eston, who became the basis for Pon Jong Ho Script, Mickey has to die six times, but the Korean director of six deaths apparently seemed few, and six turned into 16 in the film.

After the next painful death in the name of science, the body of Mickey goes to the pole with a boiling lava, and the miracle printer imprints his new iteration, the memories are pumped into an empty head from a hard disk that looks like a brick, and Mickey is again ready for torment for the bright future of Niflheim. But everything changes when, during the sorties to the surface of the snow planet, Mikka falls into the underground cave, where its indigenous people live: gigantic wet with fleshy mouths and playful thin tails, like among armored vehicles. They will not only not devour the Mickey alive, for which he is morally ready, but also push him to the surface. Returning to the space station, Mickey will find another Mickey in his bed: during his absence, scientists have already imprinted his new copy. This creates a problem: human duplicates are prohibited.

Mickey 17 raised a cloud of anxiety around him: the Cannes Prime Minister did not take place last year, and the world premiere now, at the end of January 2025, interprets as a “drain”, suspecting that Warner does not believe in the cash potential of the film . In part, if we assume that these reasoning are true, it is. “Mickey 17” is not a typical scientific and fantastic blockbuster: this is first of all a comedy, in places very black, in some places foolish, presenting to the audience too uncomfortable a picture of the world for a two-hour spectacle for popcorn and soft drinks.

“Parasites” were an elegant and cold exercise of economic sociology, where the public classes of heroes seemed to come to life and came to the fore, overshadowing all their personal qualities, showing how the gap between the poor and the rich determines both those and others and to overcome it, in In any case, according to Pon Jong Ho, it is impossible.

Mickey 17 begins with a technological capitalist concentration camp, where, like in the Third Reich, a vaccine is tested on a person produced in “consumables”, and a group of brilliant scientists simultaneously synthesizes deadly gas to exterminate giant mokrits. They give a gray slurry for lunch, and the Führer Marshall is being forbidden to ban sex so that the participants in the colonial expedition do not spend too many calories. In one of the reviews on the book of Eston, the reader advises to acquire some useful skill in case you have to leave the earth: Mickey does not have any, and he has no choice but to become a laboratory rat for testing radiation and disease, while his more enterprising Timo's friend gets a pilot certificate. Useful skills of ordinary performers are a necessary thing so that the gears of the colonialist capitalist machine rotate in the right direction, and Ponu, obviously, has a fierce and bright hostility.

But it is in this technoconclaiger that Mickey meets his love - our steep and daring (Naomi Aki), security officers, and at the space station slowly but surely ripens dissatisfaction with the tyrannical antics of Marshall and his wife (Tony Colllet). The gaze of Pon Zhong Ho is verified and accurate, but in the core of history there is an American novel, and this, as once said in the film “Siberian Barber”, explains a lot. “Mickey 17” is not an anti -utopia, but the projection of the desired, that to a large extent is the essence of the movie: when the lovers are reunited, the heroes sacrifice themselves for each other, and the dictators are defeated (or not).

This is a great romantic task - to inspire and inspire, but this is not what you expect from the film Pon Jun Ho: you are waiting for a disinfected scalpel, and not a homeopathic patch.

But perhaps Pon Zhong wanted to play the American format with the adventure of a half-accelerated hero: Mickey is as stupid simplethe as an Ivan-Durak from Russian fairy tales-according to the dramatic arches of the Hollywood blockbuster. With the advent of a double-clone, Mickey under number 18, from the hero, is separated by his “dark” essence, ready to instantly resort to violence and challenge Marshall. Pattinson is powerfully and fervently copes with both the bifurcation of himself and with the comedy, and in space he is already an experienced player: he came off the ground and was in extreme conditions near Claire Denis in “Higher Society” (2018). The Mark Ruffalo playing the raging king creates a parody at the same time on Donald Trump and Ilon Mask - it turns out no worse than that of Alek Baldwin in the Saturday Night Live program . Will the heroes be able to arrange a coup and throw off the ziging Trump in a single film? Pon Jun Ho at least gives them a chance.

For those who are interested in the informal side of Berlinale and live news from the fields, Irina Karpova leads a telegram channel .