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Class, like chaos, is a ladder: Parasite, a luscious home invasion caper, unpacks the moral and social corruption needed for the climb.
It’s not unfamiliar territory for Bong Joon Ho. After all, Snowpiercer’s climate-disaster train was an allegory for the deterioration of justice and equality in the elite’s effort at’ balance’.
But the South Korean filmmaker’s retreat from bleak dystopia carries a much heavier toll. Foremost, Parasite is an extraordinary piece of cinema- but it’s also a rich treatise on class warfare and the curse of high-life dreams.
You can check out the trailer for Parasite below:
Beneath the bread line, we have the Kims- a family united in their poverty, moving from chance to chance and always online. In the immediate instants of find them, their greatest concern is not one of food or place, but WiFi.’ No WhatsApp ?’ expects a panicked Chung-sook( Chang Hyae Jin ), the ultra-cleaning, cloth-in-hand mum.
Their home is a titchy basement apartment, peering out through steel tables onto Seoul’s backstreets, flowing with soiled air and drunken ragamuffins. Their only internet access is gifted upon them from above- genuinely, as siblings Ki-woo( Choi Woo Shik) and Ki-jung( Park So Dam) hop up onto a toilet to secure a crumb of signal from a password-less modem.
As the mild-mannered, affection grandfather, Ki-taek( Song Kang Ho, in another collaboration with Bong) keeps the front when others pause. For instance, as street fumigators let loose outside, a move to shut the windows is met with’ No, free obliteration !’ as he continues to fold pizza containers in the smog, grafting in an economy where millions of graduates apply for security guard posts.
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Upstairs and beyond are the Parks, living a life in a Grand Designs sanctuary of glass, grass and skill deco finesse( visualized with an effective blend of CGI and the most breathtakingly intricate make pattern you’ll ever relish ), previous residence to its own architect.
Yeon-gyo( Cho Yeo Jeong) is a bit’ simple’- a naive housewife, a worrying mum focused on her son’s’ eccentric genius’ and his love of the pseudo-Native American, while her daughter Da-hye( Jung Ziso) is left a bit sidelined. Meanwhile, their pa Dong-ik( Lee Sun Kyun) operates a regimented life: white-collar production, ferried home and a home-cooked meal via the steadfast housekeeper( Lee Jung Eun ).
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Two slopes of the coin, coasting through life. Yet, their macrocosms collide thanks to a universal constant: son likes girl. Ki-woo’s friend advises him to educator Da-hye in English- one, because he’s’ 10 hours better than the college guys ‘, and two, there’s no threat( the thought of them’ slavering over my Da-hye’ represents him sick ).
Through some photoshop wizardry politenes of Ki-jung( her excited papa muses:’ Wow, does Oxford have a major in document forgery ?’), he’s soon accepted into the Park home. From here, it’s a series of overhead light-bulbs( metaphorically and literally ).
To delve into more plot would be a disservice to Parasite’s thrilling elegance. Bong’s brilliance has always spurned genre pigeon-holing: think of it as a social realist drama-thriller hybrid, brimming with auteur abounds and Ocean’s Four hijinks- only now, the robbery at comedy concerns a high quality of life , not casinos.
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Beat-for-beat, each film-making component cultivates gloriously in tandem. Every camera glide and go( under the dutiful self-control of Hong Kyung Pyo ), each resourceful spin on Jaeil Jung’s score, the many, countless spins and turns- all evidence of Bong’s mastery of the medium( particularly in one showstopping, peach take-down sequence ).
Their infiltration is made all the more gripping via the ensemble’s perfect executions. Two reputations stand out: Ki-jung, aka’ Jessica, merely child, Illinois Chicago ‘, whose phony’ prowes psychology’ allows the actress to channel excellent authority. Then there’s Song Kang Ho, who settles in yet again another wonderful performance- much sweeter, more vulnerable and worthy of allotments notice he didn’t receive.
It’s a true testament to the humanity in Bong’s writing that the fake Kims, in their ruthless evasion, are a damn screeched to be around. Beneath their fraud is a tangible ability of gaiety, a grateful of kinds that lessens would could easily have been presented as self-serving villainy.
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That’s because their perceive of upper-class isn’t fetishised like in Crazy Rich Asians- aspirational capitalism is the path to people’s downfall and withdrawal from what’s proper, it seems.’ She’s rich, but still neat ,’ one says.’ No, she’s nice because she’s rich ,’ another replies.
Bong’s work has long been admired for its adroit concentration. Here, his confluence of heart-thumping pizzazz and an sour seeing of today’s society is angrier than ever. Not as gut-wrenching as Ken Loach’s kitchen-sink tear-jerkers – it’s smarter, nippier, funnier, scarier, with any number of sides in play at one time.
It’s unclear who the titular parasites are. On one mitt, the Machiavellian Kims are the easy target, suckling at the teat of servitude with a dishonorable modus operandi. Though, the Parks aren’t innocent in all this- their innocence is stanch, the indifference of their own servants is clear( they’re extremely attentive of staff’ crossing the line ‘, and sickening at their flavor ). They’re a prime example of monetary excess- for both kinfolks, it’s what clouds their conviction, rarely for the better.
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Perhaps the real parasite is the class system, as people on either side of the Upstairs, Downstairs divide flounder and magistrate the other( at one point, Yeon-gyo draws Ram-don, a combo of instantaneous noodles and pricey meat, a clear juxtaposition of the two lineages ).
The battle of humours is chiefly a clandestine struggle, until it isn’t. Bong evolves Parasite into the most unexpected of considers- a rightfully versatile, bloody, wondrous ordeal( with a near Biblical moment of filling heart-ache ). Propulsive and beautiful with havoc to spare, then cauterized with a bittersweet denouement. There’s never been anything like it, indeed a cinema like no other- now that’s a real triumph.
Cinema of the highest form. No headline will ever convey the capability of Parasite – it’s a masterpiece that has to be seen to be believed.
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