It was the last pre-pandemic Oscars ceremony and one that felt like it broke new ground. The big winner that night was the first film in a language other than English to win Best Picture. It scooped Best Director, Original Screenplay and, of course, International Film as well. Despite the might of Scorsese and The Irishman, and Tarantino with Once Upon A Time …., South Korea’s Bong Joon Ho made light work of brushing aside the competition with Parasite, which has just been added to Netflix in the US on February 1 (also available on Netflix in the UK).
With his reputation already established by the apocalyptic thriller Snowpiercer (2013) and environmental fantasy Okja (2017) — which is also on Netflix in the US and UK — and the Palme D’Or already under his belt for Parasite, an Oscar triumph was perhaps inevitable.
What it represented — cinema as a genuinely international art form — was more significant and those much-quoted words from his Golden Globes acceptance speech just months earlier seemed like a prediction. "Once you overcome the 1-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films." He wasn’t – and isn't — wrong.
The film's intricately woven story gave him free rein to dig deep into his love of social commentary, black humor and sudden shifts in tone. The lives of two diametrically opposed families initially run parallel to each other but gradually start to overlap. One family lives in a frequently flooding basement, trying everything they can to bring in money until their eldest son is offered a tutoring job by a wealthy family. It opens a lucrative door, with the young man and the rest of his family resourcefully finding ways of getting rid of the staff in the house and taking over their jobs. Their rich employers are blissfully unaware, immersed in their luxurious lifestyle, but when they’re away, a housekeeper who was conned out of her job shows up and opens the door to a completely different world.
It's almost impossible to categorize Parasite, such is its complexity. A social satire first and foremost, it savagely aims at countries where there’s a marked gulf between rich and poor — which is pretty much anywhere. The affluent family’s immaculate house with its manicured grounds represents society, all luxury on the surface but concealing the dark, gloomy and smelly reality lurking beneath. Horror and bitingly black comedy are woven into its fabric, along with thrills and unexpected treats, to make an unsettling masterpiece.
Essentially, we’re watching a class war play out in front of our eyes – one with plenty of losers and few, if any, winners.
During the shoot, Bong Joon Ho filmed in both color and monochrome, so that twelve months later a black and white version made its debut in cinemas. It’s a fascinating partner piece for the original: what was previously light gets darker, what was gloomy becomes brighter and, while the story remains the same, the tone is markedly different. Track it down if you can. However you watch it, the film is easily one of the best cinematic experiences of this century — engrossing, thought-provoking, shocking and stunning. Can Mickey 17 live up to it? We’ll find out next month.
Parasite is available now on Netflix in the US and UK.
