Parasite
2019
Running time: 123 minutes
Genre: Comedy, thriller, drama
Director: Bong Joon-ho
To say that this movie is filled with exciting and unpredictable twists and turns is an understatement. Bong Joon-Ho gives the audience a clever interfolding zigzag of genres, plot twists, and symbolisms.
Forget the last film you’ve seen this holiday and start watching this one right now. (Sorry, UK peeps, I heard the film won’t be released until February 2020, don’t worry, I tried my best to avoid spoilers here). If you’ve seen it before reading this, go and watch it again and tell your friends to have a glimpse of the trailer, then discuss what you saw. That’s just how powerful and exciting Parasite is, making it really worthy of Cannes Palme d’Or, the film festival’s highest accolade, Best Foreign Language Film at Golden Globe Awards, and Best Feature Film at the 2019 Asia Pacific Screen Awards recently held in Brisbane.
Parasite is carefully crafted through the brilliant use of space, light, music, words, people, and actions. To say that this movie is filled with exciting and unpredictable twists and turns is an understatement. Bong Joon-Ho gives the audience a clever interfolding zigzag of genres, plot twists, and symbolisms.
Parasite is about two families trying to pull their life through based on their needs, which they constantly get from each other. The Kims – with its patriarch Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho, who also played vital roles in Bong's The Host and Snowpiercer), his wife Chung-sook (Lee Sun-kyun), and children Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik, who had a short role in The Host) and Ki-jeong (Park So-dam) - rub shoulders with the rich Parks when Ki-woo is recommended to become a substitute tutor for Da-hye (Jeong Ji-so), the daughter of Park Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun) and Yeon-gyo (Cho-Yeo-jeong). Given his English skills, Ki-woo becomes a trusted tutor for the Parks (which I believe is also referenced in Okja’s subtitle “Try learning English. It opens new doors!” though, there’s another context to it, go figure). But more than that, Ki-woo finds an opportunity to bring in the others and make it a family affair – all eventually being employed by the gullible Mrs. Park. But not for long as hell breaks loose after a chilling discovery amidst their liquor-fuelled enjoyment overlooking the pouring rain in the yard. The genre shifts from a delightful comedy to a sticky thriller, making it hard to determine what style it is, which I feel is a great character for a film like this.
But forget about the antagonist-protagonist divide too because there’s hardly any in the story. Bong Joon-Ho wants us to focus on the scenes and the details of his masterpiece instead. Bong is known for his three previous big films, The Host, Snowpiercer and Okja, among others, which have references to the division and negotiation of class, status and power (a reflection of his background in sociology). This is what I love about Parasite and basically Bong's movies, as he fills them with sociological references and binary oppositions from start to end if you could spot them. But unlike these previous films, Parasite brings out the issues through an approach that highlights humanness with no CGI and sci-fi elements.
The film starts with a depiction of class struggle through the view of the Kims’ residence, a ‘semi-basement’ infested with bugs, urinating drunkards, and their invisible status from above. However, the family’s optimism also surfaces as they celebrate their triumphs in their tiny but tight-knit home. This is exemplified by mundane events such as successfully finding a ‘bounteous’ wi-fi signal that they usually hack from cafés around their vicinity as well as free stuff from the fumigation and dubious successes of the siblings. As opposed to the Kims’ cramped, low-lying and invisible abode, the Parks live in an elevated house with an upward footpath and ramp, abundant sunshine and a great view of nature through wide glass windows (a space and scene deprived of the Kims), a large living room and yard designed by a known architect, and spending power that could easily ‘iron out creases’. A divide that is as visible in South Korea as in other parts of the world.
The Kims try to do what they do best to survive while the Parks use the other for their survival in the world of the rich and ‘nice’, trying to uphold their liking of people do not ‘cross the line’. As one family sucks blood from the other, we are led to ask who really is the parasite and who is the host? Perhaps, the divide is needed to maintain balance in society and for both the host and parasite’s survival. And as the film shows, even the slightest disturbance in the social equilibrium (apparently has been happening before the Kims’ takeover) would lead to chaos.
To be fair, it is not just Bong Joon-ho who deserves credit and recognition for the film's brilliance. The whole cast is commendable but I particularly felt Choi Woo-shik’s charm in his short role in The Host to have been used perfectly in Parasite, as well as Park So-dam’s wits and ‘acting’, and the underrated, unrecognized Park Myung-hoon as Geun-sae (who is also a significant figure illustrating class struggle). The uses of space, lighting and camera work, of course, are also remarkable, thanks to Hong Kyung-pyo (Cinematographer) for bringing out the dynamics in each scene.
Bong-Joon Ho admits that he is a genre filmmaker, but conventional genre classification bores him and Parasite just shows exactly that. He breaks the genre divide by rolling comedy, drama, thriller, tragedy, satire, and sociopolitical commentary into one great ride, but just enough to excite the passenger for another lap. It seems that you already know or expect what happens next (read: suspicions) until you don’t because Bong (and Han Jin-won, co-Screenwriter) wouldn’t let you. A clear case of clever storytelling, screenplay, and film directing.
Watch the official movie trailer here:
Now tell us what you think of this film. I heard that a series based on the film is being made in collaboration with American filmmakers. I don't think it might have the same impact as this, but who knows? What say you?
*original version of this article appears in Getamungstit January 2020, Issue 01, Vol. 06, written by me
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