Story by Bong Joon-ho
Screenplay Written by Bong Joon-ho & Han Jin-wan
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
**** (four stars)
RATED R
This is the magic of going to the movies!! The magic of entering a storytelling universe and allowing yourself to be taken in by its cinematic spell in a darkened roomful of strangers all having the exact same experience. When that very storytelling universe happens to be one that is foreign to the viewer, then all going well and if the film is executed at its most successful levels, then, the magic of going to the movies is felt tenfold.
For me, in all of my years of going to the movies, I have not ever seen any films from Director Bong Joon-ho. While I have been loosely familiar with his name and a couple of his films, including "The Host" (2006) and "Snowpiercer" (2013), I just have not taken the plunge into his cinematic world...and for no apparent reason whatsoever. With the arrival of his latest film, "Parasite," I would like to think that my whole ignorance of Bong Joon-ho certainly played into my response to the film as I honestly had not one pre-conceived notion of what I would experience, making his cinematic voice one that was completely unknown to me.
But that is not to take anything away from what "Parasite" is in its entirety, whether I had previously known of Bong Joon-ho, or not and that is to say that his new film is ingenious, it is jaw dropping, it is a Pandora's Box of malevolent surprises and it is unquestionably a revelation in our movie landscape which is indeed favoring those lavishly produced yet assembly line theme parks that audiences are growing dangerously accustomed to. Honestly, when was the last time you went to a film not having an idea of what to expect and just ended being blown away by the results? Trust me, dear readers, when I emphatically urge you to take a chance on Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite," a film so audacious in it brilliance that it is easily one of 2019's tallest achievements.
In order to ensure that there are no spoilers, I will only provide the following description detailing the plot of "Parasite." As the film opens, we meet the Kim family, which includes family patriarch Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), matriarch Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), daughter Ki-jeong (Park So-dam) and son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik), all of whom are unemployed and live together in a dilapidated semi-basement apartment.
When Ki-woo's college bound friend Min-hyuk (Park Seo-joon), suggests to Ki-woo that he pose as a college student and become an English tutor for the teenage daughter in the wealthy Park family, which includes Mr. and Mrs. Park (Lee Sun-kyun and Cho Yeo-jeung, respectively), their young son Da-song (Jung Hyun-joon) plus the aforementioned Da-hye (Jung Ji-so), Ki-woo's decision begins to intertwine the two families.
And yes indeed, that is all I am going to divulge to you. But, I will extol to following...
While the title may suggest something either grotesquely violent or something possibly regarding the supernatural, I will assure you that this film does not fit either description. That said, Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite" is masterful in its direction, meticulous in its writing, acting, and visual aesthetics most notably, its set design and finally, it is brilliantly multi-layered in its characters and overall thematic elements. Because of these qualities and attributes, it is of no surprise to me that the film was awarded the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.
Working in superbly crisp and razor sharp collaboration with Cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo, Editor Yang Jin-mo, and Composer Jeong-Jae-il, Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite" sprints across and weaves together the elements of the social satire and the pulse pounding thriller in a fashion that feels as if it is indeed the first time you have ever experienced anything quite like this film while also existing as something familiar enough to evoke nothing less than the finest of Hitchcock, The Coen Brothers, some Quentin Tarantino and even Woody Allen's "Match Point" (2005).
As the subtleties and overtures, plus micro-aggressions, stereotypes, prejudices, fears and dark wish fulfillments that exist within class warfare are all on display and crucial to the entire experience with "Parasite," we have a film that does indeed extended beyond film genre hopping/blending and exists as a passionate and uncompromising morality tale in which Bong Joon-ho never utilizes his film as a platform to sermonize but as a means to explore our collective humanity if presented with a set of seemingly impossible choices.
In doing so, Bong allows us to be tickled and terrified by what unfolds throughout the film so seamlessly as it is somehow so inexplicably identifiable and recognizable enough to picture ourselves within the film's scenarios, thus making for a film experience that is simultaneously claustrophobic and cavernous, intimate and universal, foreign and familiar, hilarious and horrifying.
Again, dear readers, and especially for those of you who are typically adverse to viewing anything with subtitles, which "Parasite" indeed is filled with from end-to-end, this is why we go to the movies!!!! This is what the movies are for!!
If you please allow me to stand upon my Savage Soapbox for a moment and address once again the controversy surrounding the comments made by Martin Scorsese against the Marvel Comics movies and their ilk, which is precisely the same gripes and grievances I have made against the entire sequel, prequel, remake, reboot, re-imagining culture that is now the engine driving the movie industry regarding which films are made to how they are all released.
As I have always presented to you throughout the history of Savage Cinema, I love films that are created and designed to exist as escapist and many of those types of movies are indeed some of my most favorite movies. Some of those movies are the very ones that made me fall in love with the movies as an art form.
I saw and loved Anthony and Joe Russo's "Avengers: Endgame" just like all of you. I am practically salivating with anticipation for J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: Episode IX-The Rise Of Skywalker." But, that being said, I don't wish to see those kinds of movies every week. And I passionately believe that as movie goers, we should not want to have those types of movies as our steady, constant cinematic diet every week.
What I hate is how the prevalence of those types films have powerfully altered the movie going landscape and this is what Scorsese is rallying against, the theme park reconstruction of what we, the general public, are being given to see in our movie theaters via the illusion of choice. Certainly, naysayers would argue that the sheer spectacle of those escapist movies are tailor made for our movie screens. True. But honestly, how large does Batman's cowl have to be?
I believe that our movies screens are as tailor made for rich, multi-layered cinematic storytelling of all styles and genres as much as it is for the awesome sight of the destruction of the Death Star. And to find yourself lost in the superior cinematic storytelling told by an unfamiliar creative voice delivering a wholly unfamiliar perspective, it is as if you are seeing the movies anew all over again.
This is why the arrival of Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite" is so crucial as this film is cinematic storytelling at its most artful, entertaining and ferociously original. If I wished, I would describe this movie further for you. Yet, I wish for you to receive it just as I did, with little to no information. That way, perhaps you can take a chance and find yourselves in that dark movie theater prepared to enter into a cinematic vision that will feel like falling into a new world, emerging afterwards with your perceptions possibly altered. What a shame it would be to miss a film of this high level for no other reason than it was foreign, subtitled and otherwise unfamiliar.
Again, Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite" is one of the very best films of 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment