Best Claudia: “Because I lived my life my way. And I will die my way.”

Best Keanu: “My hands.”

Tonight I watched Okja for the first time. It’s a 2017 film by Bong Joon-ho. If you’re wondering why I am starting a page about John Wick: Chapter 2 by talking about Okja, it’s not what you might be thinking — that I’ll make some connection to that time Keanu (and Diane Keaton, who had been just reminiscing onstage with Keanu about that horrible movie they made together, Something’s Gotta Give) presented an Oscar to Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won for the screenplay of Parasite.

No, I’m going to talk about Okja because I’ve been meaning to watch it for the 6 years it’s been on Netflix, and there is another, more tenuous connection I’ll make to John Wick: Chapter 2. But I want to start by saying that Okja ripped my heart out. There is a certain scene, near the end of the movie, where I screamed and started bawling, deep, throaty tears. I needed someone to be around to console me, but no one was.

So if you have landed on this page because of some reason other than Okja, I suggest you watch Okja, unless you are vegan like me, because then you will have your heart ripped out. And if you’re vegan you don’t need to watch the movie because you’re already on board with the message. And if you’re not vegan, or not amenable to arguments in favour of veganism or less meat-eating, it’s likely you will find the movie too weird and won’t even get to the devastating scene I’m talking about.

But whoever you are, if you are reading this, just know: Okja ripped my fucking heart out. I’ve been vegetarian for 29.5 years, vegan for about 10, so if it’s going to rip anyone’s heart out, it’s mine.

So, why did I switch on Netflix to watch Okja, tonight of all nights, as I decided to finally sit down and write about what was, before John Wick: Chapter 4, my favourite of the John Wick franchise?

Because I was thinking about Keanu and Common in that subway fight scene, and the lucky extras who got to be a part of it.

For a couple of years I did a lot of extra work — or background, as they say professionally — so much so that one year, maybe 2018, I did enough hours to get preliminary entry into the union. That’s a bigger deal than you might think. There are background actors who do that job for decades; that’s just one reason why the use of AI to reproduce their images is such a big deal, at least for them, in the current SAG-AFTRA strike.

I started doing background after my aunt and uncle, well into their retirement years, took it up as a hobby. My aunt is still very much with us; my uncle, my beloved uncle, passed away in 2020. (While I did not dislike him while he was alive, it wasn’t until he after he died that I had an experience that changed my view of him, so that now I view his memory with a great deal of tenderness).

My aunt and uncle were background actors in Okja. I’d seen them before, in the very early scenes where Tilda Swinton gives a rousing speech in what was in the film an abandoned factory and is in real life an abandoned mine. Before tonight, however, I’d stopped the film after spotting them. It took me 6 years to finish the whole, devastating, heart-shredding picture.

[*]

The background actors in the knife fight scene between Cassian and John Wick were given the gift of the ideal extra job. There are two primary reasons for this: they get to sit; they are required to watch the main actors.

Neither of these are common with background gigs. Background actors are just that, background, and fill in scenes to make them look closer to real life (or the movie’s approximation of real life). In real life, there isn’t a central group of characters who everyone stares at. Crowds walk here and there, in opposite directions, in loops (think of that scene in The Truman Show — “they’re just going round and round.”). So background actors can work 14-hour set days and usually have no idea what the scenes they are in are even about.

Those left on the subway after most of the crowd flows out, so Cassian and John Wick have enough room to engage in hand-to-hand combat and pull blades, crouch as far back as possible on either ends of the subway car. They don’t look away, of course; they watch until John places the blade in Cassian’s heart and tells him the blade’s in his aorta, and if he pulls it out, he will die. The subway stops, John Wick walks out, and the background actors do their job and bolt, too.

I imagine that scene was 1/2 day shoot. The background actors got to watch the lead actors at close range. They likely saw discussion about the scene between members of the first unit team. They were paid and fed. Plus, even if they wore uncomfortable shoes that day, it likely didn’t matter much, because they were sitting in a subway car.

I want to start talking about that one background gig where I chose stylish over comfortable shoes and had to walk back and forth and back and forth and back and forth for hours; at one point I was in so much pain and my rhythm so off I smacked right into one of the lead actors.

But if I keep talking about background, I’ll never get to the brilliance that is John Wick: Chapter 2.

[*]

But let’s ask about the club scene in John Wick — the original — when John enters the crowded dance floor. A person walks close to him, and he remains focused, his hand gently brushing them aside. I’ve always wondered, was that in the script? Or did a background actor just get a bit too close and Keanu reflexively nudged them out of the way?

[*]

Here’s one thing you might have missed about John Wick: Chapter 2: the sommelier apparently recommends wine, as well as weapons. When John enters the room, he saunters past lines of bottles before the camera pans to the wall of guns.

It’s this extended sequence, where we meet the sommelier, the keyholder/map archivist, the tailor, and the seamstress/marksperson, that is one of the best in the John Wick franchise. There’s such care taken for each character, even if their roles appear minor and we never see them again.

But their roles are not minor because they instruct the audience about how complex this world actually is. It’s not merely assassins and various bad guys and their bosses; there’s an entire ecosystem of figures who keep this world going. It’s not just the silence of those who exist in our world, e.g. Jimmy the Policeman.

[*]

Chapter 2 has several fantastic scenes. Gianna d’Antonio’s death, when you actually feel like John not only regrets being there, but might even be a little intimidated. After hearing about it and hearing about it, we see John kill three two men in a bar with a pencil. (A fucking pencil! Who the fuck can do that?) And we get to see John fed up, when he “finishes it” in the New York Continental with Santino d’Antonio. But he didn’t finish it, of course. He ensured it would continue for at least two more films.

The Bowery King here doesn’t show up until the last act, and mostly to “get this man a gun.” Ruby Rose, who signs, and in so doing reveals that John does too, has a bigger role than Laurence Fishburne. Ruby dies, though, while Laurence still kicks about for at least two more films.

Best part of John Wick: Chapter 2? It appears only humans were harmed on screen this time. No dogs, no birds; just many, many unlucky humans in this very violent, very fictional world.

July 2023