And the games begin … the Oscar nominations are out. Who is gonna take home those coveted gilded statues? To be honest, I haven’t seen all of the selections the Academy deemed worthy of praise. So maybe I am not the best to judge them. Already we have seen Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger bandied about for the top acting awards. This is all fine and good, but does one good performance make for a best picture? “1917” (again haven’t seen it) seems to have a shot at the major prize. But not one person I have talk to who has seen it can tell me anything about the performances. The Screen Actors Guild awards have, moreover, recently named another film to be the best overall: “Parasite”.
Now hear me out, this may be a foreign film, but it is very much one that plays to Western audiences. The works of director Bong Joon-ho have kinetic energy to them even when there is nothing going on. His style has translated well into English-language projects too such as “Snowpiercer” and “Okja,” the latter of which you can check out on Netflix. Surprisingly though, the films set in his homeland may be his most accessible. The climax of his second feature “Memories of Murder” still gives me chills at the idea that killers are just ordinary and can walk among us.
Parasite
Entertainment Rating: ★★★★
Directed by: Bong Joon-Ho
Starring: Woo-sik Choi, Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, So-Dam Park, et.all
I must confess that I am stalling in this review if only to not reveal too much about the intricate details. Bong’s film is best viewed with as little known as possible. This being said, some things I can say are as follows. There are two families, the down-on-their-luck Kims and the well-to-do Parks. The Kims are able to find employment within the Park family household. Their prodigal son secures a tutoring position with the help of a friend that starts the ball rolling. The Parks are seen as an opportunity not to be squandered. Most Hollywood films would see this as just a simple conflict of cat and mouse to see if the Parks will find out about the Kims’ ruse. But it becomes more than that. It is a dance to see what the Kim family will do next to insinuate themselves as belonging there.
Even with that said, it is hard to say that one family is more sympathetic than the other. The Kim family commits some heinous deception, but they are not seen as villains by any means. Kang-ho Song has worked as the everyman in Bong’s films before, “Memories of Murder” and “The Host” among them. Here as the Kim patriarch he instills a sense of grounded pride in both his family and their accomplishments. The Park family, by contrast, cannot be seen as innocent victims either as their true nature is subtlety conveyed through their actions. Sun-kyun Lee displays the Park father’s sense of ethics that are admirable at one point, but also demeaning at others. This level of detail could only be crafted with the best performers working in tandem with an expert filmmaker at the helm.
It is unfortunate that most audiences here in America don’t see these movies. The aversion to subtitles is one of the main reasons for that. But even taking that out of the equation, most people do not think that they can relate to the consequences of these characters because of the culture difference. However, given this film’s box office, here’s hoping that tide is turning. What Bong Joon-ho excels at is breaking down those barriers to get the meat of the story, what makes us all entirely human. There is no telling what will win Best Picture come February. One thing is for sure, my money is on the film that made peaches thrilling and Morse code heartbreaking.
