Photo: Kurt Iswarienko Bong Joon Ho considers himself an optimist, even if it’s not exactly obvious from his work. “It doesn’t work to deny the dark reality, to just gloss over it,” he explained to me through his go-to translator (and awards season celeb ) Sharon Choi. “You need to be vicious in portraying how pessimistic our reality can be, to look at it straight on. That’s the premise of optimism — as small as that hope may be, I think that’s how we should go about it.” The fruits of this