Official Trailer:

Bong Joon Ho tackled Climate change and social hierarchy in Snowpiercer, an engaging movie where train compartments are used effectively to show the social divide while it speeds around the world impacted by global warming. By the time Bong Joon Ho made Snowpiercer, he was already famous, made his stamp with Memories of Murder, and The Host. With his latest work, Parasite, he has pushed himself a notch higher by giving us a masterpiece. Watching Parasite, the first thought that crossed my mind was, our Kollywood directors need to watch this as a study on how to make message movies without in your face dialogues, long sermons, and quotes that don’t fit the narration. How to build the message, what you want to say, in to the story and stage it, without ramming it down our throats. In Parasite, one can enjoy the movie as a heist or crime film without noticing the underlying message. It is not a must one need to get the message to enjoy this movie.

Parasite revolves around a poor family that lives in a semi-basement house that slowly infiltrates in to a rich family picking up jobs, starts enjoying the benefits, before they realize there are surprises in store. Not just for them, for the audience too. How do they infiltrate? Fake their degree. Pose as an art therapist. Get the existing servants fired so that mother and father can get those jobs. Now they can make more money without having to fold pizza boxes. There is hope, for them to move out of the semi-basement. Their scam works and going well till they hit an intruder. How far are they willing to take their scam? What starts out as light comedy turns in to an interesting drama with twists and later explodes in to a bloody climax. I didn’t see the bloody climax coming at all. So unpredictable but felt so much in place.

One may get the feel poor people are shown as parasites and movie is pro-capitalistic. I felt movie didn’t take sides and rather showed a symbiotic relationship between classes of people, sometimes beneficial, sometimes harmful. The movie oozes with visual mastery. How the living place is used brilliantly to show the class divide. While Kim’s family lives in a semi-basement house, similar basement is where Park’s family park their luxury cars. Then there is another basement dweller who doesn’t get a window at all. Water could be a blessing or a catastrophe depending on which side of the class divide you fall. Park’s family enjoy rain through the large window while Kim’s family has to worry about whether their basement survived the heavy rain. Kim’s family members have to climb a ramp and multiple steps to enter Park’s mansion. Steps represent ladder that needs to be climbed to move from being poor to rich. Do you need to be crooked to climb the ladder or is it possible to be straight and ascend just based on merit? Assuming you get a window, a window of opportunity? The smell from old Kim couple disgusts the rich couple but in one scene it arouses them too 😀 So many visual Easter eggs and I can’t stop talking about it. How about conversations? Sample this one,  She is nice and rich!!, She is nice because she is rich. Or this, win or lose matters only if you plan, I don’t have any plan. They are so much open and subtle at the same time, full credit to Bong Joon Ho.

Overall brilliant performance by everyone but personally I loved Song Kang-Ho and Park So-Dam’s, father and daughter, performances. As we watch Kim and Park’s family lives getting entangled, it also makes us uncomfortable exposing the inherent disrespect we have for people below or above us. Therein lies the success of this movie.