They changed the description for Bong Joon Ho's new animated ocean movie

Several years ago I was looking at Bong Joon Ho’s filmography on Letterboxd and saw that he was directing an animated underwater movie that was yet to be titled. The short description of the movie made me feel very sad and touched, and surprised that his movie was going be to about such a sad, touching medical situation with a fish.

Above is the description that was originally on Letterboxd. It has since been updated. I became slightly fixated on the poetry of the description.

The story will reportedly follow an invertebrate deep-sea fish who believes he’s suffering from spinal disk herniation.

What a strange, melancholy synopsis for an animated movie. Of course, it contains a bit of Okja. Another sad animal story. It made me think, wow, Bong Joon Ho is serious about his commitment to sad animal stories with unique premises.

Now, the movie’s title has been announced as “Ally,” and has a new, still unique plot idea. It still sounds compelling, and I will watch it, but my original feeling is gone.

The story will reportedly follow an invertebrate deep-sea fish who believes he’s suffering from spinal disk herniation.

I imagined this sort of sad animated girl-fish wandering and swimming through the ocean, lonely, pathless, and fixated on a potential health issue that may or may not even be happening to it. It’s sad to imagine a small animal with awareness of its own potential health problems. Especially one so specific as a “spinal-disk herniation.” Of course, worry is not implied in the sentence. I am bestowing some of my own worry upon the fish character, but that is the crucial element of this story. Selfishly giving meaning or feeling to the neutrality of even a fish’s life. I think Bong Joon Ho would do that too, given his anti-speciesist movie Okja.

I wonder who wrote the original description, and I wonder if they felt anything while writing it. To me it contains the essence of a true sadness that sincerely invites a sympathetic response.

The story will reportedly follow an invertebrate deep-sea fish who believes he’s suffering from spinal disk herniation.

I relate to this story. I relate to the deep-sea fish with a he pronoun. I often believe I am suffering from something. Not in the way a hypochondriac would. I mean I believe I am suffering from awareness or consciousness. Life often feels forced, like I was meant to be nothing, and then I was pulled into a deep ocean, left to wander, in a worrisome, brief way, underwater, with my “illness.”

I wanted to memorialize the prior description of Ally, because I found it poetic, and also because the context I found poetry in was unique. Thank you.