PARASITE (2019) MOVIE REVIEW

PARASITE (2019) Review - A Story of Submission

Cast: - Song Kang-ho, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Jung Ji-so, Jung Hyeon-jun, Lee jung-eun, Park Myuong-hoon, Park Seo-joon.

Director: - Bong Joon-ho.

Parasite really is the kind of remarkable experience that makes modern movie-going such a joy. Boon Joon-ho’s Parasite has won four awards at the 92^nd Academy Awards for Best picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay Award and Best International Feature Film with a budget of $11.4 million and a box office collection of $257.3 million.

The opening scene of the parasite starts with a basement’s window after which we first meet Kim Ki-taek (played by Song Kang-ho) leading an unambitious family of four, with his wife Chung-sook (played by Jang Hye-jin), daughter Kim Ki-jung (played by Park So-dam) and son Kim Ki-woo (played by Choi Woo-shik) living in a semi-basement level home, scouting the corners of their house to find Wi-Fi signal and leaving their windows open to benefit from bug-killing street fumigation. Their current source of income is folding pizza boxes for a pizza delivery joint, and it doesn't take someone solid knowledge to know that that money isn't going to be enough to feed four grown mouths. But, they have a plan, as Kim Ki-taek elaborates - it is to not have a plan at all. For then, the risk of anything going wrong is nil.

Parasite is, therefore, a story of submission. On one end of the spectrum, the Kim family has submitted to their condition of never improving. On the other end of the spectrum, the Park family has submitted to never peeping out of their ivory towers. They don't need to. Led by Park Dong-ik (played by Lee Sun-kyun) with wife Yeon-gyo (played by Cho Yeo-jeong), daughter Park Da-hye (played by Jeong Ji-so) and son Park Da-song (played by Jung Hyeon-jun), the Park family doesn't live in a bubble; they live in a fortress, fortified by wilful ignorance.

And then their worlds collide. Kim family have nothing but one another and a shared sense of hard-scrabble entrepreneurism. So when son Ki-woo is faced with an unexpected opportunity to home-tutor a rich schoolgirl, he gets his gifted artist sister Ki-jung, to forge a college certificate, bluffing his way into the job and into the home of the Park family. Spying an opening, Ki-woo realises that his own family could easily fill such roles, and hatches a plan that will inveigle the Kim’s into the privileged lives and home of the Park’s, slowly the daughter becomes the art teacher, the father lands the job of the driver replacing the older one, and finally, the older housekeeper is practically thrown out overnight and replaced with the mother. All this without letting the Parks catch a whiff that the Kims know each other.

Bong once again foregrounds a distrust of wealth and authority that has been a recurrent feature of his work. The more they collide, the more apparent their differences get. They are separated by class, a difference that is almost flowing in their bloodstreams now. It appears the Kims have gotten so used to living in hiding that they'd prefer living the life of a parasite, rather than disclose they are related and have a fair chance at being judged on the basis of their good work.

Bong Joon Ho had said at an interview that the idea for Parasite had been in his brain for a while - like a parasite, if you will. We're glad he didn't get rid of it, though.

Through Parasite, he gives us a very clear picture of the South Korean society, or of any other place where unequal distribution and growth of wealth have resulted in the 'rich becoming richer, poor becoming poorer' model, which is why it hits so hard.

The Kim family may live in sewage-flooded squalor, but they are clearly every bit as smart as, and a lot more united than, the Parks, who turn their noses up at the smell of “people who ride the subway”. Similarly, while the smug Mr Park is habitually depicted ascending the stairs of his ultra-modern home, and the Kims are pictured scampering down city steps to their own underworld apartment, it’s clear who holds the dramatic high ground.

In Parasite, the cinematography by Kyung-pyo Hong, and editing by Jinmo Yang deserve a special mention. Staring out the window at Park’s, you soak in the lush green of their front yard, while at the Kim’s, there's a drunkard peeing at the lamppost, who wouldn't stop even if you were to throw a bucket of water at him. But the visuals of those water droplets twinkling against the light from the lamppost, in slow motion, and the good laugh the have-nots like the Kim family share at that moment, is like poetry.

Perfectly accompanying the film’s tonal shifts is Jung Jae-il’s magnificently modulated music, which moves from the sombre piano patterns of the curtain-raiser, through the mini symphony of The Belt of Faith to the cracked craziness of cues in which choric vocals do battle with a musical saw. Just as the action can segue from slapstick to horror and back – sometimes within the space of a single scene – so Jung plays things straight even as madness beckons, ensuring that the underlying elements of pathos are amplified rather than undercut by pastiche.

The storytelling style of Parasite is also unique. Bong Joon Ho goes from dark comedy to absurd comedy, to simply dark, and then darker. Finally, it touches a point of hope, and while one could look at it as just hope, it could also be the point where the film reached its darkest.

For me, Parasite is best described as a melancholy ghost story. Thrillingly played by a flawless ensemble cast who hit every note and harmonic resonance of Bong and co-writer Han Jin-won’s multi-tonal script, it’s a tragicomic masterclass that will get under your skin and eat away at your cinematic soul.