A comedy without clowns and a tragedy without villains

Rating: 9/10 (28 April 2020)

Writer/director Bong Joon Ho ("The Host" "Snowpiercer" "Okja") has been on a roll of late with thought provoking genre films with underlying social commentary. From river monsters, to end-of-the-world tales, to a pig-like Totoro, Bong is not afraid to take seemingly popcorn concepts and work them into a smart film that has arthouse and movieplex crossover appeal. With "Parasite" he takes a more subtle route and tells the story of a struggling family living in a tiny basement hovel in South Korea where they have to leech off neighbors unprotected wifi and deal with nightly public urination outside their alley-side windows. When the son lands a job as a tutor for the daughter of a rich family by pretending to be a college student and lying about his resume, he spots an opportunity to recommend his sister as an art teacher for the younger brother, hiding that she's his sister and lying about her credentials as well. Next the brother and sister scheme to get the chauffeur fired so their dad can land the job and then how to fire the longtime housekeeper so their mom can snatch that opening. To tell more would spoil the fun, but I will say the film takes an unexpected turn and dramatic shift in tone. I had no idea where the film was going or how it was going to end and the ultimate ending is quite a shocker. What's most interesting about the film is asking the question, who really is the parasite? Is it the lower class family living off the rich family host or is it this privileged rich family living off the backs of their working class servants? The answer is that it could be either or most likely both. Bong's thesis appears to be that this situation of haves and have-nots coexisting is untenable and will lead to an inevitable collision course, much as it happened in his prior film "Snowpiercer." Bong sums it up best himself when he was described "Parasite" as "a comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains." If I had a complaint about the film it's that the shift from humorous satire to something darker felt a bit incongruous, but Bong likely did this intentionally to bolster the film's message around the inevitable conclusion of a world of stark haves and have-nots. "Parasite" is a compelling film that delivers a pure cinematic experience, meaning that it's a story that could not have been told in any other medium, and is an absolute treat for cinema lovers.