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hurrengoa
animal instinct    It's not the first time we've published an interview with Bong Joon-ho in the balde. He's been closely associated with Donostia Zinemaldia since he opened Barking Dogs Never Bite there in 2000. We got together with him in 2003 when he presented Memories of Murder. Later, in 2006, he turned the monster film genre right around when he filmed The Host. He took this contemporary of Godzilla's out of the cinema festival world and made everyone talk about it. It was an incredible success and the American dream factory industry wanted to get its tentacles around him. Last year he took part in the film Tokyo along with Leos Carax and Michel Gondry. But Bong Joon-ho went back to the atmosphere from before filming The Host. This doesn't mean that he's abandoned the monsters. No, there are still monsters in his films, although they're different now. A mom is the main character in his latest work Mother, which he has presented this year. This mother, who has a slightly retarded son, does detective work throughout the film, trying to prove, in spite of the forces she's up against, that her son did not kill a young girl. This woman faces all types of obstacles, and as we all know, mothers are mothers, they're the best ...

She comes across like the main character of a detective novel...
It's also a film about investigation. But she isn't a policewoman or a detective motivated to work professionally. It's the story of a woman who starts working to save her son and that's a big difference ...
What is that difference?
Animal instinct. A mother would do anything to save her son. And that changes things a lot. It means that while a policewoman looks for the truth, a mother wants to save her son, even if that means having to do absolutely anything. The protective instinct is uncontrollable for a mother and is even above morality.
Well, in this last film of yours, unlike in your previous ones, there isn't much similarity between the characters ...
Someone said to me that the characters are egotistical, but I think they're weak, not selfish. They're poor people. They always live in difficult circumstances. And, in connection with this, they're like animals. They have to step over other people in order to move on. But that's a consequence of their weak situation. They're not like the people who live at the top of society. They don't have resources, or second chances either.

He's now working on a film version of Rochette and Lob's exceptional comic "Le Transperceneige". He hopes to open this in 2011, which seems like a long time to wait to us. What's the comic about? Read it and you'll find out ...