Parasite Review
I am tempted to say that this review contains spoilers for simply existing.
Beyond the searing exploration of classism that permeates Korean society, and has become more and more pronounced across the world, and the effortless morphing and switching of genre and tone, and probably a million other astounding things, Parasite is simply a really fucking great film. Going from good to great to mesmirising and unmissable to people tripping over themselves to call it the best film of the year, case closed doesn’t once feel like hyperbole.
Sure, there’s a nagging tug on my mind to withhold calling any film, no matter how good, a masterpiece at the top of the pile. Time gives more clarity after all — an element that snakes its way through the film, moving from fear and guilt, to a chance at redemption. It is uncontrollable, something Bong Joon Ho understands. It is uncertain, malleable, outside ourselves. Memories of Murder and Snowpiercer, in different ways, are soaked in the manipulation and harnessing of time (often to the characters detriment).
Sitting in a semi-basement, barely able to log onto the free wifi from above, constantly having to endure a man pissing out the front of your place, time becomes stagnant, awash in a terrible void that one feels helpless to do anything about. The Kim family struggle, but for what? What has the passage of time done in the face of circumstance, luck, social structures?
Where was I? Sorry, the film has a way of drawing you into vast depth without realising it until you’ve sunk all the way down. It’s one thing, then another, then another ten things. You can’t disengage from it. Locking its jaws around your psyche. Oh yes! The craftsmanship, lord my god, the craftsmanship on show. So bold, so brash, so intoxicating, so beautiful and ugly in its beauty. The colour! The sound! The writing! The framing! It should be illegal for a film to be this good in so many ways. Bong is operating at peak 80’s Spielberg, peak Renoir, with a dash of Wellesian abandon and Kubrick’s god-like technical mastery of cinema. Few directors today reach that pinnacle. Bong got there. Again.
Be patient with Parasite. Let the first hour wash over you. Watch the turn. It’s an investment, not a bad gamble on a three legged equine. A genuine thrill of narrative control that’s also an accessible piece of genre filmmaking that more than just the regular arthouse crowd who cringe at brilliantly entertaining and moving blockbusters have wet dreams over films like Parasite. Bong’s work has rarely been subtle which enables an easier distillation of what lies beneath. The trappings of genre an advantage for someone who embraces them without a knowing wink. A relatability that leaps from cinefile fame to mainstream master. If one so chose.
Should one see it? FUCKING YES
