FILM REVIEW
Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good;
7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2:
Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non-Functional.
PARASITE
Dir: Bong Joon-ho
Stars: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-damPARASITE
Dir: Bong Joon-ho
Running Time: 132mins
Parasite is a film in the right place, at the right time. Director Bong Joon-ho's longstanding thematic concerns surrounding inequality and class warfare, previously expressed with potent if scattershot anger in his post-apocalyptic drama, Snowpiercer, have gone mainstream. Nobody could deny that Parasite becoming the first film in a non-English language to win the Best Picture Oscar was a surprise, but its victory over Sam Mendes' more traditionally worthy 1917 represents a rare occasion when the Academy's vote reflected the mood of the times - particularly compared to last year's hilariously misjudged award for Green Book.
Bong's film sees an impoverished family, the Kims, manipulate their way into the employ of a richer family, the Parks, only to discover that they aren't the first to take advantage of the Parks' naivety and affluence. It is based on the director's own experience as a tutor for a rich family and his feeling of disconnect between the worlds of the extremely rich and the extremely poor. Bong taps into one of the major concerns of our time, the increasing distrust in the central capitalist principle that those who work hard enough will be able to ascend as far as their talent can take them. His film reflects the strengths and weaknesses in the arguments against capitalism which have been growing in fervour since the taxpayer-funded 2008 Wall Street bail-out.
Parasite has Bong's freewheeling approach to genre on entertaining display: the film starts out as one thing, a cynical comedy about a poor family forcing their way into (sometimes occupied) jobs under a rich family. The instance the Kim family's deception is complete and apparently secure, Bong snaps his fingers and turns his film into something very different, a Hitchcockian thriller blended with ramped-up social satire. That the film's two halves don't feel discordant, or the sudden transition between them jarring, is a credit to Bong's ability as a writer and filmmaker to softly root the second-half shift both in small clues and an off-kilter tone in the early parts of the film. There's a sense of disquiet as the Kims go about infiltrating the Parks' lives that something is lurking under the surface, that the Kims' schemes seem to be going too smoothly, for the film not to have something more up its sleeve.
Bong never makes this explicit: the first half of the film works tremendously on the premise it sets out and there is no foreshadowing of the twist to come. Had the film ended in the way the audience might reasonably extrapolate - the Kims make a mistake, their ruse is discovered and they are sent back to the poverty they fought to escape from - the film would have ended perfectly cohesively, both narratively and thematically. There's no reason to suspect anything bigger is coming, only a whisper in the small ways Bong unbalances his film: the Kims' schemes being a little too cruel, Mrs. Park a little too detached and gullible, an off-handed comment about the Park housekeeper's unusual gluttony.
Bong never makes this explicit: the first half of the film works tremendously on the premise it sets out and there is no foreshadowing of the twist to come. Had the film ended in the way the audience might reasonably extrapolate - the Kims make a mistake, their ruse is discovered and they are sent back to the poverty they fought to escape from - the film would have ended perfectly cohesively, both narratively and thematically. There's no reason to suspect anything bigger is coming, only a whisper in the small ways Bong unbalances his film: the Kims' schemes being a little too cruel, Mrs. Park a little too detached and gullible, an off-handed comment about the Park housekeeper's unusual gluttony.
When the curtain is pulled back, the shock is a disorientating but satisfying pay-off to previously seeded suspicions and a bold escalation of Bong's anti-capitalist thesis. The success of the turn from grey-ish comedy to high intensity suspense is predicated on a balancing act that Bong pulls off with deceptive grace, immediately gaining sufficient trust from the audience to allow him to ramp up the stakes far enough to circle back around to gory comedy before ending on a note of quiet pathos. Had that central twist not been so well executed, it's reasonable to assume that the entire film would have fallen apart. Bong makes it look effortless.
Why then, despite Bong's expert hand on the page and behind the camera, does the film never feel as satisfying and substantive as it ought? The first half of the film creates suspense with the abiding sensation that some key detail in the storytelling is missing, yet to be revealed; the second half, for its myriad delights, has that same sense of lack, only this time going unfulfilled. Bong's focus on the metaphor of his film is a key reason why. His thesis is more focused and directed than that of Snowpiercer, but while the points he makes about the zero-sum battle for opportunity among the poor in capitalist systems are engagingly conveyed, as arguments they are also overfamiliar and unsubtle.
Why then, despite Bong's expert hand on the page and behind the camera, does the film never feel as satisfying and substantive as it ought? The first half of the film creates suspense with the abiding sensation that some key detail in the storytelling is missing, yet to be revealed; the second half, for its myriad delights, has that same sense of lack, only this time going unfulfilled. Bong's focus on the metaphor of his film is a key reason why. His thesis is more focused and directed than that of Snowpiercer, but while the points he makes about the zero-sum battle for opportunity among the poor in capitalist systems are engagingly conveyed, as arguments they are also overfamiliar and unsubtle.
Bong points to a facet of inequality, but does not interrogate or localise it. 'Here is a metaphor for something that happens' is less interesting a statement than more open-ended and challenging questions such as 'How did this situation come to be', 'What does this situation tell us about ourselves?' or even 'Is this necessarily a good or bad thing?' It is by no means inherently detrimental for an artist to make a concrete statement, but when a work rides as heavily on its metaphor as Parasite does - plenty happens in the film's story, but it is light on the character arcs and structure which make a story satisfying on a strictly literal level - a greater degree of detail and nuance is needed to maintain the audience's attention.
Inequality takes different forms depending on the region of the world in which it exists. Cursory research on South Korea - please do not take this as me presenting as any sort of expert - suggests interesting conflicts between a nation capitalism has made highly prosperous, where the quality of life, healthcare and life expectancy have improved exponentially in the last seventy years, yet recent years have seen a contraction in employment opportunities and almost half of the elderly population live in relative poverty. While there is cultural specificity in the aesthetics of Bong's film - the Kims' ramshackle basement flat, for instance - its mission statement speaks only in the broadest, blandest terms, allowing it to preach to a global choir - undoubtedly one of the many reasons behind its success - but in too one-dimensional a way to dig into its topic in such a manner as to expand thinking rather than simply reinforce agreement.
Inequality takes different forms depending on the region of the world in which it exists. Cursory research on South Korea - please do not take this as me presenting as any sort of expert - suggests interesting conflicts between a nation capitalism has made highly prosperous, where the quality of life, healthcare and life expectancy have improved exponentially in the last seventy years, yet recent years have seen a contraction in employment opportunities and almost half of the elderly population live in relative poverty. While there is cultural specificity in the aesthetics of Bong's film - the Kims' ramshackle basement flat, for instance - its mission statement speaks only in the broadest, blandest terms, allowing it to preach to a global choir - undoubtedly one of the many reasons behind its success - but in too one-dimensional a way to dig into its topic in such a manner as to expand thinking rather than simply reinforce agreement.
Let me be clear: Parasite is an engaging, surprising and exciting film which straddles genre and tone with rare technical expertise. Its central metaphor may be limited in scope, but is entertainingly conveyed and timely in its concerns. It is a troubling paradox that the higher a film aims and the better it is, the more pronounced its shortcomings can often feel. Bong is an ambitious filmmaker and storyteller, something to be celebrated as mainstream cinema becomes more uniform and focus-tested. Outside Bong's thesis on inequality, Parasite inadvertently reflects capitalism a second time: a great achievement in most measurable ways, yet frustrating as a victim of its own success in never quite attaining the promised heights. [7]
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