Parasite (2019)

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

Bong Joon-Ho’s PARASITE deserves all the plaudits, it should win all the awards. It was a worthy winner of the Palme d’Or in Cannes this year.

It’s difficult to write about it without giving spoilers, so’ll I’ll keep my review mini, and plot-free.

Other than to say this... it’s about three families... and explores the difference between a wealthy family and a poor family. The poor family contrives to attach itself to the wealthy family, gradually becoming part of its household. The family succeeds, but the venture has its repercussions.

It’s an original, written for the screen. The performances are excellent all round.

There’s a touch of mysticism in it, perhaps the drunk stranger the poor family throws water over is the key to their luck changing; or perhaps it changes the moment the scholar’s rock is picked up and separated from its base? 

One of the characters says four times “it’s metaphorical”. This might be a reference to criticism levelled at Joon-Ho’s previous work, especially SNOWPIERCER and OKJA. Those films are metaphors, but all of the Korean Director’s films are metaphors, it’s just that when he introduces family to the equation (see THE HOST), magic happens. 

If the characters in SNOWPIERCER were cyphers, in PARASITE they are not, they are flesh and blood, strong and vulnerable, they connect with each other, and we love them.

PARASITE is wonderful. A near-masterpiece. It encompasses several genres without you ever feeling that one upends the other. You’re never sure where it is going but when it gets there, everything feels right and in its correct place.