The Best 5-minutes of Parasite
By: Srikar Naredla
Tags: Movies, Academy Awards, Film Reviews, Oscars 2021, Filmmaking

Korean movie Parasite was in news all over when it created history being the first ever non English film to win an Oscar under the best film category. Not just this, it even bagged a total of 4 awards on the day’s eve. Yet director Bong Joon Ho’s speech was something which impressed audiences. After which, many have watched the film , of which while some applauded, others criticised the film. I was one amongst.

Poster of Academy award winning Parasite(2019 film). Source:youtube.

This write-up is about those 5 minutes in the film which according to me were a major justification behind it bagging the Oscar. Before jumping in to the content, let me remind you the film revolves around how a poor family dupes a rich family into hiring them all for service jobs, later exploit and enjoy their rich life and comforts. The title ‘Parasite’ itself is a master stroke depicting a parasite’s life cycle.

Coming to the best 5 minutes, they are from 39:22–44:21 minutes from the start, after the act-1 wherein 3 members of the poor family almost successfully entered the rich and now attempt to bring in the fourth one, their mother in the place of the house maid. For this to happen, director chooses a montage style of film making (here screenplay). To make it clear, montage style involves a compilation of scenes with little or no dialogues grouped together to convey a passage of time quickly while communicating necessary visuals within that condensed timeline. Let me familiarise this montage thing to you, try remembering final fight from The Karate kid, or shots involving Al Pacino from God Father (1972) or ending shots of Maniratnam’s Bombay movie with soothing Rahman music. If not the best would be the Rajni transformation song from Annamalai or Pachani chilakalu thodunte song from Indian movie where in the director very well depicts the family bonding and their perceptions towards life in a 4-min song altogether. Even here in this film director’s decision for opting a montage style is brilliant as by then, we see three con plays, the fourth being toughest, done in montage makes cutting faster and act can be brought to crescendo sooner.

Director Bong Joon Ho is obsessed with rhythm, this we can infer from his earlier works like “The Host” (2006) or “Memories of murder” (2003) even in Parasite, for viewers it’s like surfing the story the way editing, sound design, camera work carries us from moment to moment with background score adding life to every sequence. I guess he believed ‘getting the pacing right is the only way to get tonal shift to work’ and perfectly did it. I bet one gets a visual immersion, a total viewing experience if one gives attention to the rhythm. He took just about 60 shots for exactly 5 minutes on screen and everything together well montaged which distils his mastery into a perfect diamond of a sequence which I feel it worthy to take a closer look at.

The most important thing here is the setup. The first thing I’ve noticed is how balletic things are, yet the pacing is mesmeric. Bong achieves this using simple slow motion and linear camera moves and every shot offers information. Several fore shadowed shots and referencing back and forth, the camera moves and the music making one know of every step of their plan in detail, contribute their best in making the sequence an organism on its own (maybe parasite). For instance, the way how sauce is spilled on the pizza referring to its usage as blood later (no more spoilers). Generally, montage is used to manipulate time, look at the number of shots taken right from the idea generation to its execution (The son knowing of the house maid’s allergy to poisoning her successfully) in just 8 shots absolutely mastering it like how Alfred Hitchcock did for Psycho (1960). Also the poor father deceiving the rich mother with the dialogues written by his son. This scene is a beauty, though they have dialogues repeated by both the father and the son in the sequence, the tempo was inter-cut for more balance and made it a single conversation rather making it tedious to watch., which actually reinforces the conversation montage is already having with itself, the conversation which is about to payoff. for this even the editor needs to be well applauded.

There also is another montage in the movie, the consequences of what happened earlier, because by then the poor family’s cunning nature and ability to tackle things reached its pinnacle which was also beautifully crafted. Another montage maybe in another story…

Those were my best 5 minutes from the film Parasite and may be a justification for the movie bagging Oscars and creating history at least for me.