Parasite Paragraphs

Parasite(Bong Jon Ho, 2020) is a South Korean thriller/comedy that won the Oscar for best picture award in 2020. The film is about a vey poor family, the Kim family, that live in slums, who have to be crafty and smart to survive. This involves small work for little cash, using neighbours wi-if, and opening their windows for free irrigation. They live like this, until the son of the family, Ki Woo, manages to fake his credentials to get a job as a job as a Tudor for the extremely wealthy Da-Song family. The film follows the course of increasingly intense events that lead to one family leeching of another, and questions are brought up of who’s right, who’s wrong, and what’s in the basement?

The story is told through sequences some times. For example, there is a short yet extremely important sequence about halfway through the movie that quickly yet effectively shows how the Kim family cons and manipulates the Da-Songs, and it does this through a quick series of clips that convey how the plan was formulated, executed, and its consequences. The scene is genius, cutting expertly from how Ki-Woo invented the script for his father to use, to how they worked together to make the current housekeeper look like she has tuberculosis, and how they went on to replace her with their own mother. Aside from that, the movie starts, the events play out, and then it ends. It is completely linear, but the way the director, Bong Joon Ho, utilises every moment and scene and shot to show the viewer what the protagonists are thinking, and what they will do, is genius, as it does not patronise the audience with lots of exposition, and instead gives the content in an entertaining and clever format.

I loved the film! I thought that it was extremely clever how Bong used scenery, cinematography, and Mise-En-Scene to deliver the events of the story and the motivations and personality’s of the characters, who are all well written, played, and executed in the movie. I think the overall message of the film was that trying to lie and cheat you way to the things you want will only bring you pain, and you run the risk of losing the ones you love. The best way to achieve your goals is to do it honestly, so you can be happy in the end. Otherwise, you will make mistakes, and lose track of who you are, dragging those who matter to you doing with you, just like Ki-Woo.

I rate parasite 5 stars!