Highly Recommended
Bong Joon-ho draws on his considerable talents to explore the divide between rich and poor. A film you’ll be digesting for a while, before planning to see it again. But you know what they say about plans…
“It’s a family movie,” South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho told audiences at the Sydney Film Festival this year. “It’s an R-rated family movie.” Which shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with Bong’s filmography, one that’s run the gamut from crime drama Memories of a Murder to environmentalist pig-caper Okja.
In his first solely Korean production since 2009’s Mother, Bong introduces us to Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), an unemployed driver, who lives with his wife Choong Sook (Jang Hye-jin) in a sub-basement with their two adult children, stealing WiFi and putting together pizza boxes for cash. After his son Ki-tae (Choi Woo-shik) gets a job tutoring for the well-to-do Park family, the entire clan soon scams their way into employment in the household. For a while they ride the gravy train. Then things get weird.
To reveal much more about the film’s plot would be criminal. In fact, director Bong wrote a lovely open letter to reviewers to refrain from revealing anything beyond this point. “Your considerate refrain will be a wonderful gift to the audience and the team that made this film possible.” Who am I to deprive the world of this gift? Some kind of Grinch? Not today, Satan. Not today.
If Okja drew parallels with The Host, then PARASITE traces its comparisons right back to the earliest days of Bong’s career. While the title might imply some kind of creature feature, the horror comes entirely from people interacting with other people. Partly a missive on the relationship between the rich and the working poor, there’s a perpetual tension lurking under the surface that comes to the fore in spectacular fashion.
Bong shows his craftsmanship as a filmmaker with impeccable visuals, from the perfectly staged mise en scène of the slickly modern Park house to the basement view of Kim’s family. For the latter, Bong cheekily stages the view of the outside world through the submerged window looking onto an alley, typically filled with people urinating on their way home from a drunken night. Contrast this with the bright greens and open spaces of the Park’s backyard, and it’s a visual reminder of the economic divide between the classes.
PARASITE is the first South Korean film to win the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, only a year after the Festival’s recognition of Japan’s sublime Shoplifters for the same award. It’s not simply a recognition of Hirokazu Kore-eda and Bong, but of the entire Japanese and Korean film industries. So, while Bong’s work has been more nuanced or high-concept in the past – and the finale lingers a little too long – this film represents everything that is good about Korean filmmaking and will hopefully introduce more audience to its unique charms.
2019 | South Korea | DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho | WRITERS: Bong Joon-ho, Han Jin-won | CAST: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Entertainment| RUNNING TIME: 132 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 27 June 2019 (AUS)
