Parasite (2019)

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CONTAINS SPOILERS

This is that time of the year when the Oscar nominations are announced, I realize I haven't seen most of the nominees and start catching up — or at least I try — before the ceremony. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite was at the top of my list as it scored six nominations, including Best Foreign Feature and Best Picture. Needless to say, I had quite high expectations and, thankfully, the film didn't just meet them, it exceeded them as it turned out to be a complex, rather shocking and yet fascinating tale of the human condition.

Parasite follows the Kims — father Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), mother Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin), young adult son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik), and young adult daughter Ki-jeong (Park So-dam) —, a happy but poor family living in a basement apartment whose street height window is the pissing spot of drunks, and who make ends meet by taking odd jobs like folding pizza boxes.

Things turn around when an old friend of Ki-woo, Min-hyuk (Park Seo-joon), announces that he is going to study abroad for a year and offers to recommend Ki-woo as English tutor to Da-hye (Jeong Ji-so), the teenage daughter of an upper-class family, the Parks.

Aided by the fake degrees created by his sister — the whole family is proud of this talent of hers —, Ki-woo wins over Mrs. Park (Cho Yeo-jeong) and lands the job. He soon sets up his sister as an art tutor to the Parks' young son, Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun), and, together, they put in motion a plan that soon has their father hired as Mr. Park's (Lee Sun-kyun), chauffeur and their mother as a housekeeper, all the while keeping the fact that they are family a secret.

As it moves forward, the story takes on a direction one would expect — the Kims take advantage of the Parks' absence to live in the mansion as if it was theirs and are forced to hide when the family unexpectedly returns home. However, something happens in between — the former housekeeper (Lee Jung-eun) shows up at the gate claiming that she left something in the house's basement, that something being her husband (Park Myung-hoon), who's been hiding down there for the past four years — which allows Bong Joon-ho to take a very unexpected direction that leads to one of the most unpredictable and shocking climaxes I've seen in quite a bit, and, whether you like it or not, it will shock you and stick with you long after the film's end.

What Bong Joon-ho accomplished here is a multi-layered story that manages to be entertaining without sacrificing its social commentary and themes of classism, social justice, capitalism and greed — not only in South Korea but the whole world —, and he does it while beautifully combining different genres — a heist film at the beginning, it soon expands into comedy, drama, romance, mystery, crime, and, quite surprisingly, horror. This, however, prevents Bong Joon-ho from exploring these genres in depth.

In addition, the Korean filmmaker brought to the screen an incredible group of characters. While most if not all of them are stereotypes — both rich and poor —, these people have such a richness that will keep you rapt from start to finish and, most importantly, they all are likeable and unlikeable at the same time. Let's take the Kims. They have no backstory, they are poor and quite inept, I'd add. They are unlikeable scammers that literally steal other people's jobs and don't feel bad about it. Actually, it's us, eventually, who are supposed to feel bad for the Kims. And the crazy thing is that I did feel bad for these bad people deserving no sympathy whatsoever. And it's the same with the Parks. It would have been so much easier for Bong Joon-ho to write cartoonish, privileged rich people that we cannot help but hate. And yet he went the extra mile to make them as likeable as possible. To praise is also the fact that almost all of the characters' actions have tremendous setup.

Of course the characters would have not been as mesmerizing if it wasn't for the cast who delivers terrific performances, my favourite being Song Kang-ho's as his stricken expression as Mr. Kim commits murder, a murder driven by class resentment, will stick with me for a very long time.

There are many other aspects of Parasite that are worth mentioning. The comedy, whether it's dark humour or of the stupid kind, it is always effective; the pacing is flawless; the cinematography is breathtaking and truly emphasizes the differences between classes; the score is excellent as it always fits the scene — and I loved how they used Gianni Morandi's In ginocchio da te when the Kims get possession of the Parks' house. At last but not least, the way Bong Joon-ho decided to portray classism, not through visuals but the sense of smell.

Ultimately, Parasite is a work of art that should be seen by everyone.

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