You have been warned: stay away. Spoilers abound.
This masterpiece film is so hilarious until suddenly and almost abruptly, it isn’t anymore. Bong Joon Ho’s film “Parasite” has created even more noise all around the globe after winning Best Picture in the 92nd Academy Awards. Joon Ho also snatched the Best Director while the film also received the Original Screenplay and the Best International Feature Film awards.
“Parasite” has made history at the 2020 Oscars as it is the first non-English film to win the most prestigious and coveted award in the Academy.
Prior to this triumph of the film, “Parasite” has already been an achievement for the amazing team behind it. It has won Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes film festival and the Golden Globes’ Best Foreign Language Film as well as the Best Cast in a Motion Picture at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Despite all the success, the rawness and the essence of the film evoke emotions and hits you at your very core. It makes you question a lot of things, and several times in the movie, you may catch yourself with your jaw dropped open.
The film stirs up feelings of hilarity, sadness, anger, pity, and wonder, among others. The film has explored themes that make it fall into different genres and thus, creating an entire novel genre in itself. However, one thing is sure, this dark satire of Bong Joon Ho is an absolute masterpiece. It is a fusion of reality and absurdity, and it embodies beautiful complexities that evoke both repulsion and empathy from its viewers.
The Satire: Compassion, Cruelty, and Contrast
The movie explores the struggle of the poor Kim family and their lives’ haunting contrast to that of the wealthy Park family. This riveting satire of Bong Joon Ho portrays class conflict and discrimination on a whole new level, and it is relevant as it is tense.
The disparity between the families is appropriately framed around the homes of the Kim and Park family. The Kim family is depicted as residents in a flood-prone, semi-basement apartment, with a drunk neighbor who usually tries to