Parasite (2019)

South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho doesn’t make what I would call crowdpleasing movies. His films tend to be thinly veiled political allegories taking aim at things like American imperialism and its relationship with South Korea (The Host) or class struggles in general (Snowpiercer). Bong Joon-ho’s work tends to point some fingers at the mighty and ask the rest of us to hold them to account.

Now we have his latest, Parasite. It’s already won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and it could be up for more awards here in the United States come awards season. Me? I don’t much care about that stuff and just want to see a good movie once in a while. So how was this one?

The movie opens with the poor Kim family. Mr. Kim has lost more jobs than he may be able to count, his son Ki-woo can’t quite get into University, and his daughter Ki-jeong at least has the makings of an expert forger. The family is living on what they can. Mostly that means folding pizza boxes for what little money they can make, scrounging wifi from free hotspots, and leaving the windows open when the fumigator comes by to get a free shot of poison to maybe rid their basement place of stinkbugs.

Things may start to improve when a friend of Ki-woo comes by. First, he gives Ki-woo a rock that supposedly brings prosperity. Next he offers the young man a job. Ki-woo is pretty good at English. Would he be willing to tutor a rich teenage girl part time while Ki-woo’s friend is studying abroad? The friend trusts Ki-woo to do this and maybe get his family an actual income.

As it is, Ki-woo soon finds himself hired by the wealthy Park family. But if the Parks are willing to pay one member of his family, why not all of them? A little manipulation can perhaps get his mother, father, and sister all working at the house under the auspices that they Kims are actually strangers to each other and simply making recommendations to the Parks. Mrs. Park is not the sharpest tool in the shed, and the Kim family can maybe get ahead a little bit. What can go wrong?

Bong Joon-ho’s movie poster describes it as both a comedy and a thriller. Both are accurate. Much of the movie, easily the first two thirds or so, is a fairly straight up comedy, and it’s quite funny. Each of the Kims is a bit of a grifter at heart, but they aren’t particularly violent or cruel. They’re just tired of living at the bottom of the economic ladder. The Parks, for the most part, seem nice enough. We get some hints here and there of class differences between the two families, but that’s about it. But then something comes up and we start to see everyone’s true colors.

That would be because the thriller aspect is there too, and it doesn’t come in a way that the average moviegoer might expect from that label. I won’t say anymore about it for now, but be aware that Bong still wants to make his point.

And what is his point? Well, if you know about his other work, that should point you in the right direction, but I think the title is telling. No one is identified outright as any kind of parasite. So, who does it refer to? Is it the poor Kims who latch onto the wealthy to perhaps infiltrate the Parks’ home? Or is it the Parks who have so much and leave the likes of the Kims, representing perhaps the majority of South Koreans in this unnamed city, to squabble for what they can get?

Ultimately, I think I found my current favorite for 2019, edging out my previous favorite Ad Astra.

Grade: A+