Parasite

Parasite proves that sometimes, a story is all you need. Bong Joon Ho, director of The Host, Snowpiercer, and Okja has done the unthinkable with his new film Parasite by completely dethroning Hollywood at the Oscars—which is why I finally decided to watch it.

The story would be unbelievable if not for the invisible editing and directing guiding the audience along each step. The film flows through each scene with no missteps along the way. Each beat lands, and each moment continuously builds up to the next. The twists and turns jolt you into a state of panic and wonder, thinking to yourself, “how deep can this go?” The cinematography is on a whole other level, making each room and set a piece in an ever expanding puzzle, shifting positions after each development. Bong Joon Ho holds all the puppet strings behind the camera, and he successfully puts everything in the exact right place without us ever realizing we are watching a film.

The characters are more like chess pieces than human beings, but the choices they make and how they manipulate people brings out a very realistic side to their humanity. The different angles each member of the family excels at to infiltrate the situation comes together in a fantastic montage, and how they manage to keep control is brilliant in how it tears them up inside.

What prompted this review was not me wishing to see Parasite. Throughout 2019, I went to other films when it was in theaters near me. I thought it would be a film no one would see, no matter how good it was (i.e. Portrait of a Lady on Fire). What is the point of reviewing a film no one will care to read about? But then it won the four top Oscar awards: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. Wow. Not only are those the first awards for South Korea, that is the first time that has ever happened. But why did it happen? The nominations were sadly whitewashed, yet the awards were strangely as diverse as they could be. The two films predicted to win were jokingly coined stories of “white male rage.” One common trend for the Oscars is to give Best Director to the second best film of the nominees and Best Picture for the actual winner, except this year one film earned both. Does it deserve these awards? I think it does, but now 2019 will only be remembered as the year of Parasite. A year full of fantastic stories and rich explorations into new worlds and cultures by brilliant minds of all races and genders, will now be remembered by only one film. The awards do not actually matter, but the Oscar-snubs this year abysmally outnumber the greatness of the winners. Parasite may be amazing and brilliant, but it is not worth burying a year of cinema for it because the nominations were too white.

Overall, this film is a blast to experience. It is the kind of tense storytelling that adds elements with a single drop, and before you realize it, you are being washed up in the flood. The story is so well written it begs rewatching just to find the nuggets of information given at the very start of the film. I was shouting at the screen I was so invested. The characters are solid, but the script interweaves them perfectly through the story that they feel real. Bong Joon Ho is one of the best directors in the industry right now, and this film is going to launch him even higher.

Go watch Parasite (you can rent it), the subtitles are easy to follow and I highly recommend you do no research at all. Go in blind and see what happens for yourself.

Story Rating: 10/10

Character Rating: 8/10

Entertainment Rating: 10/10