The ordinary Korean Kim family does not pamper life. You have to live in a damp, dirty basement, steal the Internet from your neighbors and interrupt by random part-time jobs. Once a friend of the son of the family, leaving for an internship abroad, suggests that he be replaced and worked as a tutor at a high school student in a wealthy Pak family. Having faked a diploma of higher education, the guy goes to a chic design mansion and makes a good impression on the hostess of the house. Immediately, an unusual plan for the employment of his sister comes to his mind.
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In 2018, the main award for Cannes was won by Hirokazu Koraeda’s “Shoplifters painting. The story of a poor Japanese family, which is trying to survive by all means, has become a kind of antipode of Zvyagintsev’s painting “Dislike. In the picture of Koraed, people, despite the difficulties, were full of love for each other, which distinguishes them from life-rich in rich Moscow films, but cold characters of ZvyagintsevÂ’s film.
This year in Cannes there was a very busy program. Such cinema masters as Malik, Jarmush, Almodovar, Tarantino presented their new paintings. But the jury, led by Mexican director Alejandro Gonz?lez I??rrit, gave the main award to the South Korean film “Parasites” directed by Pong Joon Ho.
The synopsis is simple: the South Korean family is interrupted by casual earnings, living in a tiny basement. The situation changes when the eldest son, thanks to the recommendations of a friend, a fake diploma and friendly arrogance, gets a tutor of the English language in the family of a businessman. There, in the setting of a luxurious home, the hero matures a plan on how to get his family out of poverty.
Reading the synopsis of “Parasites one involuntarily recalls last yearÂ’s winner: again, Asia, a poor family, lies and an attempt to find money, and, therefore, happiness, because for lazy poor people happiness always lies in money. In this small observation, a curious tendency is traced – Hollywood in recent years loves Mexican directors, Cannes give preference to Asian paintings. European and American cinema, apparently, is waiting for its high point.
The tape, declared as a comedy-dramatic, in fact turns out to be a mixture of genres from an eccentric comedy to a forgotten Kammerspire. But this bubbling primary broth, from which, apparently, imitative films will appear very soon, does not look ridiculous. The film, like a bobsleigh track, makes the viewer go first, then run, and at the end jump into the maelstrom of events and simply rush about, leaving everything to the directorÂ’s will. The viewer watches with interest first the resourcefulness of four adults, and then the consequences of such lies. The number of chuckles in the hall is gradually decreasing, and tension is building up. Pon Joon Ho accelerates the sled every minute, and the viewer rushes into the unknown, where every minute a new, unpredictable turn awaits him.
The main idea of the film – to show social inequality and its consequences – is demonstrated by comparing two families, each of which consists of four people – a mother, father, son and daughter. One family is poor, collecting pizza boxes and not really wanting to strain. The second family is rich, here the husband works a lot, earning a lot of money, and the wife is engaged in children and looks great. In one family, an adult son, a smart guy who knows English and wants to continue his studies at the university. In another family – a small son, trying to portray a genius, a lover of Indians and abstract drawings. There are daughters. In one family – a beautiful, but stupid, possessing excellent acting abilities, which allows her to pretend to be different personalities, and in another, a rich, but not spoiled girl who studies English, and dreams of a big and bright love.
Two different families, as if looking at each other, as in crooked mirrors, are the same parasites. For those who are richer, those who are poorer will always be parasites – they even emit a specific smell. For those who are poorer, those who are richer will always be parasites, because they have everything.
Parasitism in this film is shown at a particular level. With the development of the plot, people turn into insects, moving on all fours, then like worms, crawling on the floor. They live in basements and bunkers, behave unnaturally, lose their human appearance. They are not afraid of blood and dirt, fetid liquid escaping from the sewer. Those who are lower on the social ladder are closer to the land from which we have left and into which we will enter. For them, the process of becoming parasites is as natural as dodgy deception or overt envy.
Parasites here are English words that are found in the speeches of the heroes, emerging as something foreign, which makes no sense and without which you can speak. But these moments, when English appears in a sentence consisting of Korean words, as well as love for pizza, Indians, wigwams and scouts, look like a leaking parasitic essence of a foreign to another distinctive culture. Parasitism is everything.
This picture is not tied to the place and therefore lacks the flavor of South Korean culture. The views of Seoul are not shown here. For the viewer, two worlds are important – a tiny basement and a luxurious house. In these worlds, the plot develops. This brings the picture closer to the parable, which can be transferred to the quarters of New York and to the districts of Moscow high-rise buildings.
It’s really hard to talk about this picture. It has several key turning points that change the plot completely and which cannot be talked about so as not to spoil the viewing.
Pong Joon Ho demonstrates that a parasite lives in each of us. This parasite has a different way of expression: contempt for those who are poorer or envy for those who are richer. This parasite can remain small if it is not allowed to grow, and remains almost invisible to humans, and it can grow and overshadow any rudiments of the spiritual in humans, turning it into a solid parasitic creature for which killing is the only way to cope with its anger on all around, and cowardly escape is the only way to avoid a deserved punishment.
In a strange way, Parasites, like last year’s winner of Cannes, reminds me of Elena’s Zvyagintsev’s picture. The South Korean “Parasites and our “Elena are related by a desire to seize someone else’s luxurious territory and quickly turn from “gopniks into “intelligentsia. Endless blind envy, which leaves no choice between “passing by and forgiving us our happiness and murder, turns the heroes of these two paintings into miserable creatures for whom the next years of life will be turned into endless torments of conscience spent in the darkness of their own mind.
If each of us could just pass by, forgive and be glad for the other, not to interfere, not to lie, not to despise, then the people turned into parasites would become much less. As you know, they are not born bad people. They become. And often the parasites give birth to the surrounding society.
Pong Joon Ho – one of the most famous contemporary South Korean directors, who has not yet had the status of a cult, but stubbornly moving towards him, has made an unusual and very interesting film that raises many important questions, which is difficult for me to compare it with something. This picture prompts you to look at yourself from the side, find a parasite in yourself and make it obediently sit inside and not stick out, because any parasite should be hidden in darkness.
“Envy is a restlessness of the soul arising from the fact that another person who we do not consider us worthy to own it possesses the desired good
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (83.1 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10+
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
Korean: Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Korean: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Korean: Dolby Digital 5.1
Korean: Dolby Digital 2.0
Subtitles
English, Korean.
