Upstairs Downstairs

One of the more unique films I’ve seen in a longtime, 2019’s Parasite, co-written and directed by Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer), is a twisty movie best experienced without knowing too much – meaning that this will be as close to a spoiler free review as possible.

Like many of his movies, Parasite (which he wrote along with Han Jin Won) deals with class divisions – the divide between rich and poor. In Snowpiercer, he adapted a novel that imagines a post-apocalyptic world where everyone left living resides in a specific compartment of a train depending on his or her wealth, yet this picture is grounded in a certain reality.

Shot in his native land of South Korea, it, like every country, has its share of haves and have nots. Kim Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi) is one of the latter, a twenty-something son within a family in need. Lacking jobs, food, and wi-fi (the horror!), their bug-riddled basement apartment’s one window overlooks a claustrophobic street at groin level. . . it does not help that a vagabond alcoholic frequents the roadway, urinating there each night.

There is also another family, one of wealth and privilege. With a daughter, Park Da-hye (Ji-so Jung), that needs an English tutor, Ki-woo is gifted the position, as his good friend, who is going abroad to study, recommends him for the job. This will bring the families together, and that is about all I’m going to say.

Revelling in a world of many genres, Bong Joon Ho develops a film that could be called a pitch black comedy (especially during the first portion), contemplative drama, tense thriller, suspenseful mystery, or simply a magic act. A master of his craft, it is a film that can make you laugh and then gasp in a split second, a comedy of errors that transitions to horror-filled situation in the blink of an eye. Multi-layered, the way he frames each sequence (which often flows seamlessly into something very different) leaves the audience with a complex feeling of emotions – a sensual scene overlaying a tense, awkward suspense; understanding mixing with disgust; dreams lingering into nightmares; relief bleeding into tragedy.

Like nothing truly ever seen before, it may remind some of Alfred Hitchcock, or link up somewhat closer to the twist-filled 1955 French classic Les Diaboliques (by Henri-Georges Clouzot), while it also feeds off of fellow South Korean auteur Chan-wook Park (think Oldboy; Stoker; The Handmaiden), yet it is also not like any of them. Also, there is a North American aesthetic in some ways (think Drew Goddard’s Bad Times at the El Royale), yet it is intrinsically linked to South Korea and its people, as well as its confined city streets, and culture. It really is a revelation of a film.

In some ways inexplicable, defining its distinctive brand of comedy is not easy, for it is quirky and awkward in a wholly dark way, while its thriller aspects feed off of the house where much of the film is set. . . supposedly designed by an iconic architect, its open space is that of utter beauty, yet despite its airiness, a figurative smell lingers, for an open floor plan does not mean that there may not still be secrets somewhere within. It is also a movie of how even the best laid plans can fail due to a certain cosmic sense of humour – an irony teased out of hopeful superstition and fate.

A rare foreign film to make a charge at the box office, in its short time in theatres, it has already earned north of 120 million on a budget of just 11m (and has brought in over 11 million in North America alone – the number one foreign film for 2019). . . and perhaps, more importantly (at least to some), it won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Parasite is a soliloquy to family, a thought-provoker on the growing divide of rich and poor, it is cyclical in motion (yet like no circle I have ever seen), and simply a motion picture that will draw you in and never let you leave (haunting your thoughts long after its conclusion – it is likely that you will want a re-watch to try to see what you missed upon first viewing). In closing, this is not some sort of secret code, so make a plan to feed off of this fantastic feature.