Parasite (2019)
dir. Bong Joon-ho
Rated: R
image: ©2019 Neon
The Park family aren’t bad people, per se. They’re just completely oblivious to anything and anyone that doesn’t involve them directly. Their obscene wealth allows them that luxury. So, late in Parasite – director Bong Joon-ho’s savage satire on class – when a heavy rain storm causes catastrophic flooding in poor neighborhoods, Mrs. Park, Yeon-kyo, can only perceive how it has affected her. The heavy rains have washed away the grime of the city, she says. In fact, it’s really a blessing. And besides, the next day has brought sunshine and a beautiful afternoon, perfect for celebrating her son Da-song’s birthday. She says this to one of her servants, a member of the Kim family, whose semi-basement apartment was devastated by the flood.
That moment offers a stinging observation, one among many, of how the rich move effortlessly through the world, while the less fortunate struggle to survive. Just like Snowpiercer, Bong’s 2013 dystopian take on class struggle, Parasite is as socially conscious as it is wildly entertaining. His use of virtuoso camera technique, dense structure, surprising plot twists, and pitch-black humor coalesce into an unforgettable piece of cinema.
Bong has plenty to say about the Park family, but Parasite is really the story of the Kim family. Husband Ki-taek and his wife Chung-sook are crammed into that aforementioned semi-basement apartment with their two grown children, son Ki-woo and daughter Ki-jeong. The Kim’s are like many people living in a post-industrialist, modernized country: they are at the mercy of the gig economy.
Making a few bucks wherever they can – folding together pizza boxes for a local restaurant, for example – the Kims are barely surviving. The most visually devastating bit of commentary in Parasite comes in the first ten minutes when the Kim family’s neighborhood is fumigated with insecticide. As Ki-woo moves to close the basement’s street-level windows before the fog of chemicals can engulf them, Ki-taek stops him. Might as well get the free fumigation for their apartment, he says. So, they all hold their breath as they continue building those pizza boxes – which consequently also get a nice dusting of the insecticide. The short scene is so effective because it’s as darkly comic as it is horrifying.
Things take a turn for the better when Ki-woo’s friend, Min-hyuk, announces that he is leaving South Korea to study abroad. Min-hyuk has been tutoring Da-hye, the daughter of the wealthy Park family, in English, and since Ki-woo speaks fluent English, Min-hyuk offers to give him a reference for the job. Ki-woo objects, since he has no formal higher education or credentials. Min-hyuk tells his friend to fake it ‘til he makes it. With the reference from Min-hyuk, and the help of Ki-jeong’s Photoshop skills, Ki-woo gets the job, and instigates a plan of deception to get the rest of his family hired. From this point on, we see the vanishingly thin line between conning someone just to take advantage of them and conning someone out of a sense of desperation.
Bong Joon-ho seems enamored with the idea of process. Almost the whole of his film Snowpiercer follows the process of the lowest class of “passengers” moving from the back car of a high-speed train to its engine. We move, car by car, through the train with our heroes. Similarly, almost the first half of Parasite is concerned with each Kim family member getting the next one hired by the Parks. They must invent new personalities – with the proper qualifications – in order to fill each position. Of course, a few of those positions, like driver and housekeeper, aren’t empty. So, the Kims must concoct scenarios to get their predecessors fired.
It’s a comical process to watch, so long as you share Bong’s sardonic sense of humor. One scheme involves leaving a pair of panties in the back seat of a car; another plan aims to confuse a peach allergy with the symptoms of tuberculosis.
As much glee as Bong takes in targeting the super-rich Park family for scorn – their actions and reactions during the climax of the picture are devastating – he is an equal opportunity satirist. The Kims have little regard for the lives they’ve ruined in order to secure their new sources of income. In a way, they become the Parks, albeit with nowhere near the wealth or power of their employers.
Their plotting comes back to haunt them when the old housekeeper, Moon-gwang, returns to the house after the Parks leave for a family camping trip. It’s a twist that caught me completely off guard. The last half-hour of Parasite is the most surprising, original, and downright crazy storytelling I’ve seen this year. It would be a sin to spoil it, but it involves a hidden room and blackmail. Bong even takes the opportunity to satirize the lengths required for people to escape the burden of debt.
Some of the mechanics required to bring that last act to fruition are a little clunky. The way Bong and co-writer Han Jin-won get the Kims to reveal their true identities and relationships to other characters is a bit of a stretch. There is also a sudden shift to voice-over in the final minutes of Parasite, where none had existed before, that doesn’t work thematically, at least. It is, however, very effective from an emotional standpoint.
There is a final moment of misdirection from Bong, in the character of Ki-woo, that adds poignancy and a note of melancholy to the struggle of poor people to become rich. It’s social commentary that includes high storytelling stakes. Bong Joon-ho is a master at making deft political statements while creating characters and situations that are both engaging and thought-provoking. He did the same with class and climate change in Snowpiercer, meat-eating and empathy for all living things in 2017’s Okja. Parasite is another stunning entry in his body of work.
Why it got 4 stars:
- Bong Joon-ho is one of the best directors working right now. His (very good) politics dovetail perfectly with his intense storytelling skills to make compulsively watchable films. Parasite is a continuation of his mastery of both style and substance.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- One of the best lines of the movie (and I’m probably going to butcher this, but it will be close enough): “Is there a degree program in document forgery at Oxford?”
- There is one shot in the movie of water being thrown on someone that is photographed in super-slow-motion. It’s a gorgeous sequence.
- In another creative sequence, a flashback catches up to the story in the present. It’s a clever little bit of storytelling.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- There were only eight people (including myself) in attendance at this screening (in a theater with AT LEAST 300 seats), and yet I still had to deal with being blinded by someone using their cell phone several times during the movie. Why do they hate me?!?