Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite gained the Bafta for finest overseas movie and is up for six Oscars and it's an involving drama. And satire. And thriller.
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite gained the Bafta for finest overseas movie and is up for six Oscars and it’s an involving drama. And satire. And thriller. And comedy. And allegory. And it’s fabulous and enthralling on all these counts. It really works on each stage which is, maybe, becoming for a movie about ranges and whether or not you’re on the prime or backside in life. Primarily, it’s the story of a low-status household who gaslight a high-status household so it’s Loopy Wealthy Asians however Loopy Poor Asians too. Plus, it options the grimmest youngster’s party ever. It’s also a horror flick, I forgot to say.
It’s set in South Korea the place we’re launched to the Kim household who’re poor and scuttle round their slum basement condominium whereas leeching their wifi from the enterprise upstairs and making an attempt to do as little work as is feasible to get by. There’s dad Ki-taek (Music Kang-ho), mum, Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), a twentysomething daughter, Ki-jung (Park So-dam) and a teen son, Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik).
The plot kicks in when Ki-woo’s pal, who tutors the schoolgirl daughter of a wealthy household, says he’s going overseas and affords Ki-woo the gig. Ki-jung duly forges the tutorial diplomas Ki-woo wants (she has a method with Photoshop) and off he goes to the super-swish residence — all glass and garden sprinklers — of the obscenely rich Park household. Right here, he shortly spots a gap for his sister as an ‘artwork therapist’ to the Park’s pampered little boy — he’s spectacularly ungifted at artwork however a doting Mrs Park (Jo Yeo-jeong) thinks in any other case; very humorous — whereas his dad and mom additionally grow to be a part of the family. Chung-sook turns into housekeeper though for her to take that place they have to first incriminate the incumbent housekeeper. This necessitates a marvellously creative ruse involving peaches. And TB. The chauffeur should even be incriminated, so Ki-taek can have his job. And that is marvellously creative too. In reality, one factor you can by no means say about this movie: it isn’t creative sufficient.
The primary half of the movie is dedicated to the Kim’s swindling and deceiving the Parks — who don’t know a household resides of their midst — and the stinging social commentary. Ki-taek says the Parks are ‘wealthy, however nonetheless good’ and Chung-sook retorts: ‘They’re good as a result of they’re wealthy. If I have been wealthy, I’d be good too.’ In the meantime, Mr Park (Solar-kyun Lee) retains declaring Ki-taek smells odd, by which he means ‘poor’. (It’s the scent, he says, of ‘boiled rags’.) However halfway by way of the narrative performs a tonal swerve of the sort you weren’t anticipating and couldn’t have anticipated in 1,000,000 years. I don’t need to give the sport away so will solely say to all wealthy folks: the underclass could also be residing below your toes. Actually. Go verify. Go see what’s down there.
Directed by Joon-ho (Okja, Snowpiercer), who co-wrote the screenplay with Han Jin-Gained, that is exceptionally propulsive storytelling. With most movies, I now realise, you realize what they’re, just about, inside the first ten minutes however this retains you on the again foot all through. You haven’t a clue what is going to occur subsequent. However are determined to know, notably when, say, the Parks return from a visit early, and the Kims, who’ve been utilizing the home as a celebration home, need to all cover below a espresso desk. How are they going to get out of that one?
In the meantime, the characters, whereas deeply flawed, are nonetheless human and relatable relatively than pure caricatures — I developed a little bit of a mushy spot for the exquisitely gullible if self-interested Mrs Park. The movie is filled with visible wit and metaphor. Staircases characterize going up or down on the planet. The Park boy is obsessed by American Indians, who presumably symbolises being oppressed, and when Ki-taek has to play American Indians it’s what pushes him over the sting. At one level there may be even an precise drowning-in-shit scene that could be a metaphor too far, however what the hell. And it’s all constructing as much as that party. Oh, boy.