Parasite

Parasite is a South-Korean movie directed by Bong Joon-ho, who you mind know from his work on Snowpiercer. It was released in 2019 and received a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, which is when I first noticed it. Last Friday, we finally were in the mood for a movie night again and this was the last out of three movies we picked.

The story follows the Kim family who are living in a semi-basement apartment and try to earn enough through folding pizza boxes and other side-jobs to come by. One day their son Ki-woo meets up with an old friend who wants him to become an English tutorial for the daughter of the Park family while he is abroad. Seeing an opportunity, Ki-woo comes up with a plan to finally get out of the basement.

This all sounds like something that should normally lead to a lot of comedy and fun but I was shocked how dark and tragic everything becomes. Nobody is good or evil here and IMO in the end everybody is far worse of than what they’d deserve. It is a long movie but it also covers a lot of topics. Just to name a few:

• The arrogance of the rich
• The hopes of the poor
• The collective fright and terror of living next to an unstable nation (North Korea)
• Natural threats are different for the poor as for the rich

In summary, this is an excellent movie! It’s deep, has lots of twists, and there’s even some splatter. I don’t completely get why it’s also classified as “black comedy”, but that’s pretty much it.

Over the years I've written quite a few reviews 🙂 You can find them at /reviews/.