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Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Review: Parasite

Director: Bong Joon Ho
Screenplay: Han Jin Won y Bong Joon Ho
Year: 2019

“Parasite” has been conquering movie festivals this year, with its most important accomplishment being taking the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival in 2019. This project from director Bong Joon Ho will keep giving enough to talk about as the Oscar season approaches, where many give for a fact that it will win as best foreign film. After all the commotion this movie has caused, what’s left to see is if it’s worth it, or if it’s overrated. 

In “Parasite”, all members of the Kim family are unemployed when one of them finds a job at the house of a wealthy family. Slowly, all members of the Kim family manage to get to work for the Park family thanks to an elaborate scheme. When all seemed to be working great for the Kim family, a surprise puts at risk all that they have achieved.


In this story, the main topic is the contrast between classes, that in this case is based in South Korea, but that can be extrapolated to almost any place in the world. We see the perspective of two families with an identical family nucleus, but whose circumstances are completely opposite, and this shapes their personalities and reactions. Although this could sound like a classic poor versus rich battle, “Parasite” is much more than just a critique of the social strata.

The most impressive thing about this movie is the skill of the director and writer Bong Joon Ho to tell and show an original and intriguing story in a perfect way. Bong Joon Ho keeps impressing with the quality of his works, as he has been doing for some time now with works such as “The Host”, “Snowpiercer” and “Okja”, but “Parasite” is without a doubt his masterpiece until this moment. The script is perfectly told, without leaving loose ends and without giving any information that is not relevant to the plot later. 

The excellence of the screenplay is well paired with equal or better execution in direction. If every element in the plot has a meaning in it, the same happens with every shot, where besides having plenty of weight in how the story is told, it doesn’t lose from sight its audiovisual aesthetics and makes it an impressive one. Similarly, the excellent acting from Kang-ho Song (“The Host”), Sun-kyun Lee (“Paju”), Yeo-jeong Jo (“The Servant”) and company in a movie that evokes so many emotions round-up the perfect technical frame.


The only thing that can be critiqued about this movie from the perspective of a horror fan is that it doesn’t go deep into these waters, even when it had the material to do so. Considering this movie a horror would be an error, and it fits better a crime drama with a lot of suspense classification. But truth be told, this movie transcends genre classifications and should be enjoyed as the masterpiece that it is.

“Parasite” is, without a shadow of a doubt, a masterpiece that, from the perspective of a horror fan, only needed some more graphic violence. For the rest, this is a perfect movie; a gem in narration and visuals complemented by the excellent acting, a strong commentary on social classes, and plenty of material to generate dialogues about this topic. It would be a surprise and even a disappointment that “Parasite” doesn’t win the Oscar as the best foreign movie.





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