Parasite

So the end of the first semester came and our school decided to take us to the cinema. The school’s choice of movies when it comes to these things doesn’t usually agree with my taste, but this time a few students involved with the school senate chose a South Korean black comedy currently nominated for an Oscar in six different categories including best picture for the upcoming 92nd Academy awards, so I was kinda excited to see it. And maaaan, I should have been way more excited. This movie is amazing. Probably the best thing I saw in a really long time. So let’s break it down.

As I said, Parasite is a South Korean comedy/thriller directed and co-written by Bong Joon-ho, about a lower class family cleverly infiltrating the home of a higher class family by pretending to be skilled professionals in their respective roles.

Firstly let me just drool over the cinematography for a bit. This movie looks and sounds beautiful. The camera work is just stunning and the sets are very colorful and atmospheric. We get some amazing artistic shots, but all of them are shot from a realistic point of view and center on the characters, which makes us more emersed in the story.

The characters and acting are the two parts of the movie I could see people having problems with. They’re not bad (at least in my opinion), but they are a bit muted. The acting feels real, but kind of minimal. The characters have a deep psychological life (the movies is in large part about human psychology in difficult situations), but they don’t really express it outwardly (untill they do and than they really let it all out). I understand some people might find this movie boring for that reason, but I personally was carried by the light comedic scenes untill the really heavy stuff came through.

That’s another thing. Parasite basically has two parts. The first and significantly larger part is a light hearted comedy with very subtle, clever and enjoyable humor, while the second part turns into this crazy mystery/thriller/action thing that cought me completely unaware. It feels as if the film’s writer died with the script three quarters of the way done and Quentin Tarantino was the only person who had time to finish it, so they gave it to him.

Parasite is a movie largely about class. Our protagonists have to trick the rich family and lie to them because they can’t achieve a solid living standard by honest means and for a while it seems like it might work. With cleverness and trickery they can defeat the system and move up in the world, but than it all comes crashing down. There’s a moment in the movie that really signifies and foreshadows this idea to us. Our protagonist are talking about how the rich family can be nice because they’re rich, but just a few moments later, when they meet someone who’s worse off than they were before, they don’t act nice even thought they’re rather well off now as well. Also one nice touch that I didn’t notice untill reading up on the film later, but it’s definitely intentionally there – the hight at which the characters live mirrors their situation. The rich family’s house is located up the hill and has multiple stories, our main family lives in a half basement – not quite in the ground, but also not quite out of it and there’s someone who I can’t tell you about before you see the movie living even lower.

I was a bit surprised by the reception this movie got in my circles. A lot of my friends loved it as much as I, but I also heard a lot of people say it was a total waste of time, but f you want my opinion – go watch it. You won’t regret it.