추천 검토 (Chucheon geomto/Recommendation) – Parasite/Giesaechung

Okay, maybe the Korean titles were a little pretentious, but I regret nothing.

This time, I do a recommendation and a FU for Oscar-winning foreign language films! Yay! And what better to start than…

This Best Picture-winning masterpiece, directed by Snowpiercer’s Bong Joon-Ho, is about a poor family living in Seoul whose young adult son is hired as an English tutor for an extremely wealthy family living in the upper part of the city. Eventually, the son replaces the rest of the family’s staff with members of his own family, hoping for a better life. Tragedy, insanity and wickedly dark comedy follow.

Parasite pretty much represents all the reasons why South Korean cinema is probably the second-best cinema in the world behind the U.S.; it’s jaw-droppingly original, visually stunning and caring not for your western pretensions of formula, decency or political correctness. Much like Snowpiercer, Oldboy, Joint Security Area, Train to Busan, The Handmaiden, Burning and so on, Parasite presents an amazingly entertaining, at-times strongly disturbing, and utterly compelling ride.

Choi Woo-shik, Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin and Park So-dam as the Kim Family.

While much light has been cast on Parasite’s social commentary on class, not enough has been said about how funny it is. I laughed so hard during this movie, which was brimming with both cartoonish silliness, dark morbidity and visual gags not often seen outside of Disney movies (the “Deluge” scene still makes me chuckle whenever I remember it). Song Kang-Ho as the dad in the poor family is so brilliantly deadpan in the comedic moments, it surprises you even more when he acts so brilliantly in the dark, dramatic moments that should have really given him an Oscar as well (screw you, Brad Pitt. Your movie sucked).

Beyond its comedy, Parasite offers so much in terms of filmmaking. Every shot is perfect, every role perfectly cast, and every scene really given meaning. No scene is cringey and unnecessary, nor “Mike Yanagita” in its pointlessness. You really care about all of the characters, and you feel like you know them from passing them on the street. Bong Joon-Ho directs his ass off on this movie, and I can’t wait to see what he makes next (honestly, I would secretly like to see him replace Eli Roth as the director of the upcoming Borderlands. Seriously, think about that.)

Make this happen, world.

Now, onto the social commentary. I don’t want to spoil anything, because the internet will have already done that, and I would be beating a dead horse.

The conclusion of this film was so shocking and unpredictable that it took me quite a few hours to digest what was going on, and I love that. I love movies like this, or Joker, or BlacKkKlansman, that really make you think about what they’re trying to say, that don’t have a direct, linear conclusion that you can feel comfortable with. Thinking about Parasite’s ending and commentary, I can see a whole tree of conclusions drawn that would take ages to discuss, so I won’t. But I loved its ending.

This movie's cinematography and design are brilliant, considering it's making a tunnel- the bane of urban people's existence - look beautiful.

To sum up. Just see Parasite. It wasn’t my top movie of 2019 (it was my third), but it was incredible regardless. I would love to see more movies like this in my immediate future if possible, any aspiring filmmakers out there. Or maybe I’ll do it myself…

Anyway, what foreign language film did you love like a ménage a trois, or think was just a ló fasz? Leave your answer in the comments below.