South Korean movies don’t win Palmes d’Or…at least they didn’t until Parasite came along this year.
Here’s the trailer:
It is due to be released in the UK next February, but Janie and I spotted an opportunity, offered to Curzon members, to see a preview and then a panel discussion with Bong Joon-hu himself (who seems quite liberal about the spelling of his name in transliteration) plus a couple of actors.
Despite this being a crazy busy week for us, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss, especially as I was able to snap up a choice pair of our favourite Pullman seats for the event.
Unfortunately, our chosen Pullman seat had fallen to pieces between booking and our arrival. A sweet young woman tried to convince me that the Curzon had e-mailed me about this (oh no they hadn’t) and that we had been offered alternatives (but not Pullman seats)…
…blah blah. A nice man whose Pullman seat was adjacent to our vacant space (formerly known as our Pullman seat) said he was willing to take the lesser seats if it really mattered to us, but in the end we accepted the switch, which the sweet young woman sweetened with some drinks, nibbles and the price differential as a refund in cash.
But the comedy/drama/thrills of the seat fiasco was as nothing once the film started.
It really is a cracker of a film. Everything the trailer promises about the twists and turns, the funny moments and the suspense…
…really we were gripped by the movie from start to finish.
If you are nervous of all subtitled movies, then this one might not be for you – the subtitles are very clear and easy to read but you do need the words, so if you let your visual concentration slip from reading the subtitles when you need them, you can miss some lines…
…and when a movie is this visually stimulating, you can even be concentrating on the movie but looking at other eye-popping visuals when you need to be reading.
Still the plot is not that complicated, even though it changes tack more often than a sailing boat in a swirling storm.
Janie and I often find Q&A panels more appealing in the ideas stage of booking the thing than in the actual delivery. This one was no exception.
Most of the questions from the floor were banal. The only really interesting thing I learnt was the fact that Mr Bong had written the first half of the film several years ago and that the second half only revealed itself to him some time later. So those twists and turns don’t just happen suddenly in his head; the second half of the film is very different in style, tone and content.
One interesting question from the floor was about the symbolism of smells and water, themes which constantly recurred in the film. Mr Bong’s answers to that question were insightful.
Taken at a film festival in Munich, summer 2019.
We were also blessed with the presence of Song Kang-ho (who played the father of the parasite family) and Jeong-eun Lee (who played the displaced housekeeper).
They all seemed very nice and were well-humoured on the stage. But they all sat there with their coats on, which felt a bit strange. They also used very little English, making a young translator work very hard. The translator mostly picked up very well on the points they wanted to make, I felt.
Here is a link to a similar panel discussion, from the Toronto Film Festival.
Janie will be irritated that they use English far more in that Toronto interview than they did at the Curzon; Janie said she thought they had better English than they were letting on!
The movie is, above all else, a fascinating insight into societal inequality seen through an East Asian lens, yet unquestionably illustrating universal issues around that topic. So different in style from movies such as Sorry We Missed You and Dirty Pretty Things, yet covering many similar themes.
Point is, go see this movie, Parasite – it really is something special.