Film Review - Parasite (15)

You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. No plan at all.

As I write this review, director Bong Joon Ho and his associates are probably still partying post-Academy Awards. For the first time in Oscar's ninety-two years, the Best Picture award has gone to an international (non-English-speaking) feature film - and Parasite is its name. This South Korean movie is the reason I haven't posted a full Oscar feature yet; it only opened locally the past weekend, right as its awards-buzz was peaking. Did any film deserve to win over 1917, which in turn has been pushing out Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood, my favourite feature of last year? Could it even be expected to? And how could I preview the ceremony with nothing to say on the new major player? Well having finally seen it - and for all my love of those other titles - I don't begrudge Parasite last night's success. Not one iota. Those gongs were truly earned.

I was lucky enough to watch this film as its director intended - virtually cold, and I recommend the experience. So feel free at this stage to leave and come back post-viewing to compare notes. If you're sticking around, well... Parasite is a story of two families - the Kims, who live in a cramped 'semi-basement' flat in one of Seoul's more down-at-heel districts, and the Parks, the wealthy owners of a gated uptown mansion. Times are at their tightest for the Kims, small-time scam artists, none of whom have regular employment. That's until the son, Ki-woo, gains an interview for a job tutoring the Parks' high-school age daughter. It's a posting into which he has to lie and forge his way, but once he has a foothold, his family follow suit - insinuating themselves one by one into the luxurious world of the Parks. The ensuing class collision goes places neither they nor we could have predicted.

Auteur director Bong has tussled with the theme of class division before, namely in his futuristic fantasy Snowpiercer. Parasite is just as innovative an exploration in its way - with a story as unpredictable and precariously twisty as a rugged mountain pass. It shifts genres too, like smooth upward gear changes along that road. What begins as a vaguely unsettling crime comedy shifts to horror-tinged suspence mode, before opening into full and powerful social critique, every plot-beat and hiatus in between matched by Jaeil Jung's constantly evolving score. And yet the narrative through-line stays clear and coherent as the crisp images on display, tying neatly - despite all intervening madness - at the end. 

It's not just in genre terms that this film is hard to pin down. Whatever Bong's satirical intentions, he allows for no easy caricatures of lovably roguish poor and their smugly entitled rich marks. Instead there's something insidiously creepy about the Kims' latching on to their new wealthy benefactors, while the Parks seem insulated and naive rather than genuinely unpleasant. The warped circumstances into which they're all placed stem from factors that reach far beyond either family unit. Each role is played with a depth of humanity, not all of which is easily likeable. But then Alfred Hitchcock showed long ago that characters needn't earn our full sympathy to command our fascination. And every one of these leads - regardless of class - proves fascinating. The identity of the real 'parasite' isn't as easy to guess as you first think.

It may just be, however, that the most memorable characters are the locations. The Kims' poverty-stricken basement is ironically rich in detail, every meticulously placed clue to their lifestyle captured in the film's glorious widescreen. And the family's wider neighbourhood serves as a telling commentary on the daily grind of Seoul's deprived class. Then there's the Park residence - an avant garde grand design, sleekly beautiful and detached quite literally from wider reality. Its infiltration by the Kims makes for an intriguing dissection of how the wealthy live. There's an edge to this movie as cold and cutting as one of the Parks' state-of-the-art kitchen utensils, and the cinematography captures it shot by pristine shot. 

I'm not yet ready to say - not on a single viewing - that Bong Joon Ho's movie has the jump on Sam Mendes' sublime war epic. The final act is a head-spinning rush and I need another turn around both up- and downtown blocks to see if it all fits together as well as I think it does. By any stretch, though, this is immaculate, imaginative, gripping cinema and a testament to the director's career. I love a passion project, especially one that marries bold artistic vision with a story the like of which you've never been told before. And Bong's unique vision is all of that. I'm glad of Parasite's Academy gongs, if only for all those people who'll now be convinced to go see it. Word to the wise - be one of them.

Gut Reaction: It took around twenty minutes' set-up and then - bam! - it had me. What it did with me was a unique emotional combo of amusement, tension and awe that's going to stick around a long time.

Memorable Moment: Water, it transpires, runs downhill.

Ed's Verdict: 9.5/10. Parasite is a dark genre-splicing delight that never does what you (give up trying to) predict. It's a marvellously crafted black-comic drama and there's molten anger at its core.