The Questyen

What ever movie they pick is the "best picture" because it's their awards. Nowhere is it claimed to be everyone's best picture choice.

DaveyJoe

La La Land was technically the Best Picture winner for two minutes.

Exactly, people should stop seeing award winning movies with the expectation of being blown away. They should watch movies because they think they'll enjoy them.

Gotcha. I wasn't referring to you specifically, just in general, I see that type of thing all over social media as well.

dex14

This will be added to Hulu on April 8th.

DJariya

I've only seen the movie once in the theatre, but I will watch it again when it hits Hulu.

Brian T

Had to re-read this thread to make sure I'm not doubling up here, but the discussion of this film can certainly benefit from more links to legit news pieces that provide context, especially to life in contemporary Korea, where there are a lot of 'Kim families', far fewer 'Park families' controlling all the wealth (hooray all-powerful chaebols <--- that's just a re-post of the excellent article posted by eXcentris last week, above), and a divide that stands in much starker relief than it does in many westernized countries increasingly bemoaning the same problem. As much as the film's depiction of the class divide has resonated around the globe, some details are very specific to Korea, and Bong doesn't over-explain them for foreign viewers; they're just there, in the locations and snippets of dialogue that Korean audiences take for granted. Hopefully some of this might dispel the notion that the Kims -- in the movie as in real life -- are somehow the authors of their own misfortune and therefore more villainous than the Parks.

About the banjiha apartments:
The halfway underground homes of ‘Parasite’ are real spaces of desperation and dreams

About the Kim's prior business ventures:
‘Parasite’ Has a Hidden Backstory of Middle-Class Failure and Chicken Joints

That second article also mentions something my girlfriend (who's Korean, but Canadian-born) picked up on from nearly the first scene involving the Kims, even though her Korean is more or less grade-school level: the father's mannered speech pattern.

Also, poverty tourism!:
Parasite: how Oscar triumph has exposed South Korea’s social divide

Dan

^ thanks for posting that, Brian T.
I think there's a lot of valuable insight to be gained by being more aware of the class divide that exists not just in South Korea, but elsewhere as well, and how that colors the story being told in this film.

RichC2

Somebody else posted a thing about it earlier but worth noting, the proper subtitle for what wound up "sirloin" was apparently more the equal of Korean wagyu a5 beef, not sirloin.

bluetoast

This guy posted some nice insights into the movie as a Korean, including about switching from a formal to informal way of speaking (yes, it’s a Reddit post, don’t be scared older users ):

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comm...e_as_a_korean/

Brian T

^Good read! My GF and I both figured the Parks might be discreet drug users, and definitely noticed how much more daringly 'poor daughter' ingratiated herself linguistically with 'rich mom', as well as 'rich mom's' faux-casual insertions of English words into her speech, but it's nice to see those aspects articulated in a smarter way than I probably could have. Didn't pick up on the little bits of business with the scholar's rock, though; nice subtext there. And lots of other stuff to notice now on a second viewing. I'm really hoping that Criterion is able to bring in some respected Korean scholars (as in not only scholars of Korean film and culture, but who are Koreans themselves) who are likewise capable of contextualizing all of this stuff, because there's so much more going on in most of Bong's films than a surface read will tell you. Presumably Criterion will get the director and cast involved as well, but surely some of them might take these things for granted by default and assume it doesn't need translation (in part because a LOT of Korean films and TV shows address these issues, albeit usually less cleverly than Bong).

Paff

Went to see Birds of Prey last night (quick review: Meh. Another CGI-driven "action" movie. Been there, done that), and noticed that the same theater that was only showing Parasite once a night, and at 9:30PM only, now has it on TWO screens, with showings going on all day and night. Made me happy to see that.

Abob Teff

I finally made it to see this ... I walked out a little underwhelmed. However, after listening to a few podcasts where some of the hosts didn’t get (or agree) with the movie, my appreciation is growing exponentially.

I understand there are a lot of Korean culture issues that we Americans may not get, but it blows my mind the things that are slipping past some of my preferred podcast hosts; namely, people saying the Park Family was completely innocent and/or victimized.

That said, would “Symbiote” be a better title than “Parasite”? I know, it doesn’t sound as cool and people would probably think it was a Venom movie ...

DaveyJoe

Symbiote sounds more like a beneficial relationship than Parasite, which implies leeching and has a negative connotation. While the Parks relied heavily on the assistance of their servants, the servants themselves were highly replaceable. Look how quickly their original staff was fired, that doesn't feel like a symbiotic relationship to me.

fujishig

They weren't faultless, but how can you say the Park family wasn't victimized?

I also don't see much evidence that they were drug users. The one scene where she tells him to buy her drugs she was role playing as the imagined druggee that the previous driver was doing in the car.

Paff

This may have been discussed before, but what is the Korean title of the movie, and how close does it translate to "Parasite"?

Like, I know the Korean title of A Tale of Two Sisters is just the girls' names. Clearly they "Westernized" the title for non-Korean audiences with a Charles Dickens reference.

RichC2

It translates to "helminth", which is a parasitic worm.

Abob Teff

In a symbiotic relationship, both organisms get some benefit. It doesn’t have to be only beneficial though, there can be negative consequences. In a parasitic relationship, only the parasite benefits. The servants may have been replaceable, but both they and the Parks received some benefit.

Edit: a quick search, and ...

Symbiotic Relationships. Symbiosis is a close relationship between two species in which at least one species benefits. For the other species, the relationshipmay be positive, negative, or neutral. There are three basic types of symbiosis: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.

Abob Teff

I agree — They were! But not innocent victims as some were saying.

OH! Now the drug thing makes more sense. I thought maybe it was something lost in translation and came out weird. That makes sense!

DaveyJoe

I still maintain that symbiotic has much less of a negative connnotation than parasitic.

Abob Teff

That was my point ... it was used for its charged meaning, not its accuracy.

DaveyJoe

Oh okay, fair enough.

Dan

Finally got around to a second viewing of this. Really quite an excellent film.

One observation, which ties into some of the things posted in this thread and in that reddit link. Aside from the events in the final act (starting with the storm), I don't think the Park family was victimized by the Kim family. The way I see it, each of the Kim's had the competency to do their individual jobs, but they just didn't have the degrees or 'booksmarts' that the upper class Park family expected. I think this is something a lot of folks can relate to; they don't have the means to pursue formal education or training, but are clearly smart enough to do the work and impress. There's a bit of grifting going on, like with the daughter googling art therapy stuff, but the Park family themselves are never not getting what they're paying for.

Other than that, the contrast between the two families and their lives is quite stark. The flood is devastating to the Kim family, but is a catalyst for celebration for the Park family, never even considering that their workers might have more important shit to deal with, and insisting they participate by basically telling them they have to work the event. They had zero concern for the Kim's well-being. Zero empathy. Zero interest.

None of that means a line wasn't crossed when the shit hit the fan with the original housemaid, but I think it's reasonable to say the Kim's were not malicious with the way they entered the Park's lives. Everyone's got some kind of hustle.

Anyway... Yeah, this film holds up on repeat viewings and I was able to catch more subtle things this time around.

fujishig

Even if the Kim's didn't screw over the Parks per se, they were definitely malicious in the way they did it and they absolutely hurt the old staff by lying. Then you have the son having an inappropriate relationship with the daughter he was tutoring. And then the fact that they used the house the way they did. I'm not sure how you can say any of that wasn't malicious. They would have taken every penny they could from them. Whether that's justified because of the class structure is up for debate, but I can understand why viewers would think they victimized the family.

The flood is devastating to the poor neighborhood, and the Parks are oblivious to it, but I'm not sure how they would have connected the dots here. The Kims portray themselves as college educated and/or highly skilled/valued in what they do. They take great pains to make sure their employers don't know that they are really poor. So why should the Kims suspect that the flood did anything more to their family than what it did to their own house? Were they supposed to ask? Suppose they did ask, what would they have been told? Now they do have zero empathy, I'll give you that, they treat them like staff and not family.

RichC2

Yeah I don't get the "no concern" part. As far as the Parks knew, at least two of their workers could afford to attend school in the United States so they were likely somewhat wealthy and not living in a basement apartment. And there was nothing to suggest either of the others did either. Also the Kim's definitely grifted their way into that family, and very much took advantage of the oblivious Mrs Park.

The main thing the Parks did wrong was not getting to know their workers better, but they would have likely lied if they tried simply to keep up appearances. Well that and they unintentionally hurt Kim's pride by literally turning their nose up to him (and plugging it, due to smell).

EinCB

Terrific article about the sound design.

https://www.asoundeffect.com/parasite-sound/

Perkinsun Dzees

The coronavirus and its effect on the haves and have-nots is making Parasite look like an even more insightful portrait of our time: