Parasite (2019): Written by Bong
Joon-ho and Han Jin-won, directed by Bong Joon-ho. Starring:
Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, and Park
So-dan. Running Time: 132 minutes.
Rating: 4/4
Parasite is one of those
gloriously confident movies that is excellent enough in its first
half, building out a powerfully solid character drama about class
conflict and envy, until it flips the script on the unsuspecting
viewer halfway through and goes all-out bonkers until the very end.
This movie could have settled down and still been great. Instead,
Bong Joon-ho and his crew went for broke and ended up creating a
Goddamn masterpiece, easily one of the best films of 2019 and one
that I am confident will be the center of thinkpieces for years to
come.
Much in the veign of last year's
Shoplifters, which also happened to win the Palme d'Or same as
this film, the Kim family lives a hand-to-mouth existence on the very
edge of society, constantly scrabbling to piece together enough money
and food to live. The parallels are not 100% exact, of course, but
both films have a very similar vibe in the opening scenes, as we are
thoroughly drawn into the world these characters inhabit and get a
small feel for who each member of the family is and what they have to
do to survive, as well as the sort of indignities they regularly have
to stoically face down.
At the start of the film, said
survival is centered around the whole family making boxes for a local
pizza service. Things start to change, slowly at first, and then all
at once, when the son, Ki-woo, lands a temporary gig tutoring a rich
schoolgirl. And it is not to be missed that her family is very, very
rich; there are many shots dedicated to showing the size and space
and excessiveness of the strange, super-modern house the girl's
family, the Parks, resides in. The difference between this
21st-century palace and the filthy, bug-infested basement the Kims
live in could not be more stark.
Piece by piece, the Kims take
advantage of the amusingly detached naievity of the Parks to insert
themselves more and more into their lives. First the son starts
tutoring the family's daughter (and they start dating to boot). Then
Ki-woo pulls in his sister to teach art to the Parks' son. Then they
contrive to get both the father's driver and the mother's housekeeper
fired, eventually to be replaced by- you guessed it- the elder Kims.
Though we are watching a devious form of identity fraud being
committed, much like with the Ocean franchise there is such
deft skill, such joi de vivre, in how confidently Ki-woo and
his family put each piece of their plan into place, that you can't
help but root for them. The Kims are just so much fun; the
actors are charming, funny, empathetic, and have incredible
chemistry.
Obviously, as with all the best laid
plans o' mice and men, things will not go quite as the Kims planned,
but the details of when, why, and how exactly things goes tits-up I
would not dare even hint at; this movie is a joy to experience cold,
one of the most thrilling and gripping theatrical experiences I've
had in a long time. Beyond the excellent acting, the movie boasts
one of the year's best musical scores and dynamite cinematography,
with a wealth of storytelling packed into the framing of every shot.
This is, of course, a film about class
and economic disparity, much like Joon-ho's also-excellent
Snowpiercer, albeit with a *touch more subtelty about itself.
There is hours worth of commentary in how the film uses its
characterizations of and interactions between the rich and poor
characters to comment on how, in a society built upon the
fetishization of wealth and "success," those with less are
increasingly prompted toward internalized self-loathing, rather than
to question how, exactly, the social structures around them lead to
circumstances where some can have so much and others so little.
The visual metaphors get especially
potent during a key sequence where, during a heavy rainstorm, the
Parks' house remains warm, cozy, and dry, while the back alley where
the Kim's basement apartment lies is completely flooded out. It's so
bad that their toilet starts to literally spew up shit, the ultimate
symbol of the refuse of the high society above them being inflicted
on those below who have, in any reasonable sense, done nothing to
warrant it. A moment that follows, where Ki-woo is being invited by
the Parks to a fancy party while sitting in an emergency shelter-
while wearing smelly, donated clothes to boot- is so perfect as to
defy description.
I find it particularly interesting to
think about how it is never discussed what the rich characters
actually do for a living. There is no effort to establish what,
exactly, any of these people have done to earn or merit such wealth,
or if it's merely inheritance. In effect, the movie's lack of
interest in these details is a quiet commentary that it doesn't
matter what the rish do; they have wealth, they know it, and that's
all that matters. With the Kims, on the other hand, we either see
directly or hear about many of the odd jobs they've all done through
the years to make ends meet, from cab driving, to sports, to pizza
delivery, to the military.
There is not a single part of this
entire film that was not thoroughly planned for maximum effect.
Parasite lands each scene with devastating impact, creating a
gripping cinematic experience that only grows in the mind the more
you think about it afterwards. It is for experiences such as this
that we go to the movies.
-Noah Franc
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