Review: PARASITE

The Kim family are down and out but after a considerate favour the son is given a job as a tutor which leads to the other three Kims replacing the rest of the rich family Park's staff through a series of cons too ingenious to spoil. As the Kims make themselves increasingly at home in their fortunate bliss the breach arrives suddenly and sets the tale off into a charge toward a violent climax.

The complexity, here, is not in a weave of themes. The son, Ki-Woo frequently describes things admiringly as metaphorical. Another character spends more screen time than necessary lampooning North Korea in a scene that already involves a direct comparison between an app's send button and a nuclear one. A third act scene renders literal the notion of keeping one's head above water. Bong Joon Ho who gave us the forward thrust of Snowpiercer, the still but deep waters of Mother and the freak-out of The Host is far less interested in his audiences wasting time guessing at his themes than he is playing them out. And it's no different here as have and have not, cultured and demotic, privilege and destitution all meet in the melting pot of aspiration.

Those things catered the cast is put through a workout from nuance to physical comedy so athletic it borders on shock. Veteran Song Kang Ho, whether detaching from the noise of the world into a meditative state or battling to hold his fury gives us a lot of what the film is about. This is an ensemble piece but Song carries its weight until his character can no longer bear it. It's an impressive turn.

This is a comedy but it is not one that begins with gags and multiplies them. For all the strident indicators of the social divide on show we are given a gentle start and naturalistic introduction to characters which compels us to invest when the pace and stakes lift. This is simply masterful filmmaking. If this review is briefer than usual it's because I will not spoil this spoilable thing but more so that I just don't want to collapse into gushing. Parasite took out this year's Palme d'Or at Cannes. It deserved it.