Following its win of the Palme d’Or in the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, Bong Joon-Ho’s new film Parasite (Gi-saeng-choong) has succeeded in gaining the approval of movie fans and critics alike, reflected in its impressive ‘99% fresh’ Rotten Tomatoes rating. The first fully South Korean-produced film – with Bong as director and writer – in ten years, this highly acclaimed black-comedy is now playing in select theatres in Toronto. Though Parasite presents itself as a humorous narrative about class struggle and family, as the film progresses, it reveals its sinister underbelly in a cinematically beautiful yet chilling way.
Parasite begins in the roach-infested, semi-basement home of the Kims, a family of four struggling to make ends meet. One day, Ki-woo, the son of the family played by Choi Woo-Sik, receives a request from his friend to take over his job as an English tutor for the daughter of the wealthy Park family. After being approved by Mrs. Park (Cho Yeo-jeong) to be her daughter’s English tutor, Ki-woo learns that she is also looking to hire an art teacher for the youngest child of the family. He takes this as an opportunity to recommend his artistically-talented sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam), omitting to mention their blood relation and falsely referring to her as a graduate of a prestigious art school. Mrs. Park naively hires Ki-jung and, following an ingenious sequence of events, all four members of the Kim family are eventually employed by the Park family. Though the audience celebrates the Kim family’s success in conning their way into working in the Park household, the taste of sweet victory is short-lived, as audience members are left dreading the moment when the parasitic relationship between the two families will be exposed.
As the tone of the film shifts drastically from portraying the Kims’ fraudulent actions as light-hearted mischief to decisions with grievous consequences, Bong’s mastery of cinema really starts to shine. Unlike in the film, where Mr. Kim states “that having no plan is the best plan”, Bong strategically places metaphors at the beginning of the film which only start to make sense and foreshadow a grim progression of the film as it takes a dark turn. The over-saturation and airiness of shots in the first half of the film is thoughtfully juxtaposed against the eerie and claustrophobic cinematography which appears thereafter. It is as if the director chose to metaphorically “turn off the lights” partway through the film to expose the truth hiding in the darkness. In a literal sense, “the truth” refers to a horrible secret that is revealed in the plot, but in broader terms, “the truth” refers to the message the director seeks to leave us with: that once the pristine façade of wealth is peeled back, there lies an infestation of greed and desperation so revolting that no one would want to face in the light of day. Pair this brilliant directing with phenomenal acting, clean editing, and an intelligent script, and you get a film that is “deadly serious”.
If you’re looking to walk out of a theatre questioning whether what we value in a capitalist society is worth striving for and feeling slightly queasy, but you don’t want the blues from a monotonous antihero movie that is two hours too long, Parasite might be the movie for you. But a word of caution before watching it: Parasite will not be easily dewormed from your system. Rating: 5/5.