directed by Bong Joon Ho
written by Bong Joon Ho and Jin Won Han
Five years ago, I was introduced to the work of Bong Joon Ho through his English-language dystopian thriller Snowpiercer, which starred Avengers' Chris Evans in a decidedly different role from his turn as Captain America. I loved it, and even though I didn't get to watch his Netflix-produced follow-up, Okja, I considered myself a fan of Bong Joon Ho's work.
It would have been a shame, therefore, to miss his almost universally-acclaimed new film, Parasite, but I almost did, were it not for the fact that our local distributor saw fit to re-release it in view of all of the awards buzz it's been getting since crushing all opposition at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, including Quentin Tarantino's grossly overrated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Parasite tells the story of the Kim family, composed of the father Kim Ki-Taek (frequent Bong Joon Ho collaborator Song Kang Ho), mother Kim Chung Sook (Hye-Jin Jang), son Kim Ki-Woo (Choi Woo Shik) and daughter Kim Ki-Jung (So-Dam Park), all of whom live on the edge of poverty in what is known as a "semi basement" taking odd jobs and barely having enough money to make ends meet. When Ki-Woo's friend drops in, though, with an opportunity to tutor Park Da Hye (Ji-so Jung), the daughter of telecommunications magnate Park Dong-ik (Sun Kyun-Lee), things start looking up. As Ki-Woo starts his new job, he meets Dong-ik's wife Park Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo) and is introduced to the family and world of opulence they inhabit, where he finds himself facing a world of possibility.
It's honestly hard to go into great detail about what makes this film so compelling without spoiling plot points; as Bong himself has said on talk shows, it's a movie best enjoyed "cold" or without any clue as to what takes place in it. That said, in broad strokes, I can definitely say that Bong's storytelling is even sharper here than it was in the tour de force that was Snowpiercer. The scripting is deliberate; almost every choice the characters make defines what happens next, and even though I felt there was one distinctly false note in the script, a moment in which the film felt plot-driven rather than character-driven as it had been up until that point, it was utterly entrancing to watch Bong weave his web.
Even in Snowpiercer I was struck by Bong's ability to extract the very best from his actors, and it is again the case here, especially with his muse Song Kang Ho as the family patriarch. His pathos as a middle-aged man who has spent pretty much his entire life in the same place informs the storytelling, juxtaposed clearly against the one-percenter smugness that Sun Kyun-Lee puts on display as Park Dong-ik. A recurring theme here is smell, and it's fascinating to see how the chasm between socio-economic classes is most effectively emphasized through something as basic as human senses. The other actors obviously play significant parts in how this story turns out but it's these two performances that give the film its center of gravity, and the movie is certainly all the better for it.
With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker now in theaters, Parasite is probably gone again from all but the most esoteric screens, but I sincerely hope that when Oscar buzz starts in a few weeks, this film is remembered, as one that should not only stand alongside blatant Oscar-bait like Tarantino's pointless, fetishistic love letter to 1960s Hollywood, but head and shoulders above it.
9/10
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