The fable and the heavy hand

Rating: 8/10 (2 January 2020)

When it comes to social satires, directors often push their awareness to the viewers as if they are unaware they are preaching to the choir. Whoever saw Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite" will definitely agree with the director's populist political stance. Now only if someone would've told him that as well.
Without spoiling, I can tell you that "Parasite" is definitely satisfying. This is a thriller calculated to the nano-meter, equal in precision, pressure, unease and focus. It revolves around Ki-taek and his family--poor, unemployed and living in a "semi-basement"; some sort of small place halfway underground. Forcing the metaphor, I could argue that is placed symbolically to represent the clear-cut line between the lower and upper classes. They are poor, which forces them to be clever and witty in order to survive. So their plan is to "attach" themselves to a rich family.
For the sake of not spoiling, I will stop here. But know that "Parasite" touches on every single social point it tries to make. It is a well-defined story of class and the lack of social awareness. This works in the first half of the film, in which the naivete of the rich and the wit of the poor is augmented. This is not done to oversimplify but for the movie to properly present its parable which, by definition, is a "simple story". But if this heavy-handed approach pays off, by the end it pushes the characters into unnecessary, inexplicable, sometimes seemingly random explosions of rage.
"Parasite" is undeniably cutting-edge and modern. Bong Joon Ho uses traditional fables to conceptualize and clarify the vagaries of modernity. Throughout its complexion, it looks decidedly simple as its frames wonder around the minimalist and polished performant Asian architecture of the privileged property where most of the movie takes place--a movie as harsh with its characters as it is with its viewers.