PARASITE

Kang-ho Song     Hye-jin Jang     Woo-sik Choi     So-dam Park

Sun-Kyun Lee     Yeo-Jeong Jo     Ji-so Jung     Hyun-jun Jung

     Bong Joon Ho’s stories take you into another world so that you have to re-orient yourself into real life after you come out of a screening.  He has the ability to get you so engrossed in the characters, their environment, and the events—and keeping it all straight—you’re in something like a trance immediately afterwards.  This is especially so when you think you’ve seen the major part about halfway through, then he lowers the boom, taking your breath away once again.  The movie is full of surprises.

     The story begins with the Kim family (mother, father, adolescent son and daughter). They live in a slum, barely getting by because jobs are scarce, but they all seem to be resourceful and industrious (how much becomes part of our fun later on.) Son Ki-Woo (Choi Woo Sik) has a friend who is tutoring a child in a wealthy family, and when he has to go abroad for a study period, he convinces Ki-Woo to take his place while he’s gone because he trusts him more than his college buddies.  Ki-Woo takes it on and it’s working out very well, when he learns that the family’s young son is artistic and hyperactive.  He realizes the child Da-song could use an art teacher, so recommends someone he says he knows (actually his sister Ki-jung) to the mother, Yeon-kyo (Yeo-Jeong Jo).

     The farce begins when every Kim family member is working for the Parks under assumed names, not revealing their relationships.  Granted, to achieve this, the Kims have to resort to ruses that are considered illegal/unethical.  Here is where the writers (Ho and Jin Won Han) nudge us a bit.  By this time, we have sympathy for this poor family; how much do we tolerate their means of achieving a better living?

     The Park family is interesting for very different reasons.  The father (Sun-kyun Lee) is a successful businessman devoted to his family.  His wife, good-hearted Yeon-Kyo (Yeo-Jeong Jo), is an easy mark for deceit, welcoming each new addition to the staff with open arms.  Daughter Da-hye (Ji-so Jung) develops an instant crush on her new tutor, and son Da-song (Hyun-jun Jung) is in his own world, able to be tamed only by his “art teacher”, Ki-jung (So-dam Park).

     Bong Joon Ho likes to juxtapose the “haves” and “have-nots”, just as he has done in Snowpiercer, and, to some extent, Okja.  This time, he does it in ways that allow one to be sympathetic to both sides.  He does portray the Parks as preoccupied in their own world with little/no awareness of the suffering around them.  They are both easy marks for “clues” planted by the Kims, especially in a hilarious scene of step-by-step paranoia related to a pair of panties in their chauffer-driven car.  Ho is a bit easier on the poorer family, coming close to excusing their sociopathic strategies to achieve basic needs for food and housing and the education necessary to acquire them.

     Bong Joon Ho has solid backing from his composer Jaeil Jung and cinematographer, Kyung-pyo Hong.  The music and visual contrasts between the lives of the Parks and Kims and where they live are accentuated to show the desperation of the Kim family and the Parks’ sense of entitlement and lack of awareness of what is happening beyond their secure gates.  The pictures are eloquent in saying what Bong Joon Ho intends for us to infer about the ethics and values involved on both sides.

This film will make you squirm, tense up, and chuckle, even horrify you—all reasons enough to see it.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

OKJA

Tilda Swinton   Paul Dano   An Seo Hyun   Lily Collins   Shirley Henderson   Jake Gyllenhaal   Giancarlo Esposito

     A live pig sold for a golden replica serves as the metaphor for this film about a young girl in South Korea and her soul mate, a huge pig she’s named Okja.  Mija (Hyun) is devoted to her pet and is unaware of the contractural agreement her grandfather signed 10 years earlier.  Thinking he is doing the right thing, the grandfather is ready to return Okja to the American company who gave it to him for 10 years, in exchange for the gold piece.   But he is mistaken in thinking Mija is going to value the gold more than the pig.  His bargain illustrates how capitalist schemes can appear so appealing to naïve peoples.  When Grandfather proudly gives Mija the golden relic and she realizes what he has done, she races after the truck carrying Okja away.  In this, the film likewise illustrates the betrayal of the younger generation by the older.

     The background story is about a wealthy American family with a multi-national food tech corporation that is unmindful of its responsibility to humankind and is single-minded in its profit motive, as lived out by the Mirando twin sisters (Swinton).  Lucy, who has always seemed to be in a one-down position, has dreamed up a contest that she is sure will win over her sister and bring her respect and love from the general public.  This is done by giving poor people around the world a genetically altered pig to raise for 10 years, with the ultimate aim of having a contest as to which one could feed the most people in the world (example of genetic experimentation and conflict of interest perhaps?).  Mija’s grandfather was one of those given an animal.  In the meantime, Okja is Mija’s only companion, and has even saved her life once.

     What follows is a rather fantastical madcap story involving international travel, daring car/truck races on the highways, the involvement of animal rights advocates (Dano, et al.), the pig competition, and, ultimately, the slaughterhouse; but Mija has her head about her and extraordinary smarts, and is out to bring Okja home.

     Writer/director Bong Joon Ho (Snowpiercer, Mother) is a master at depicting dramas that pose ethical and socio-political situations for the audience to ponder, and here he makes it clear that we all have some responsibility for the state of affairs, either knowingly or by default.  That is, the grandfather is myopic as to his granddaughter’s wishes and ultimate welfare, the animal rights advocates are well intentioned but rather narrow-minded and inept, and the Mirando corporation has dual purposes topped off with petty rivalry among the owners. 

     Swinton is virtually unsurpassed in her ability to portray any character she’s presented with, and has a particular knack for odd, quirky personalities who have just enough plausibility to intrigue us.  Playing her character here and her chiding twin is entertaining in itself.  Young An Seo Hyun is captivating as a purposeful, devoted adherent to her principles.  Dano is gifted in his portrayal of appealing, sincere proponents of a cause, and he comes through here.  I was disappointed to see one of my idols, Jake Gyllenhaal, play such a buffoon role that seemed to have no purpose in this drama.  He executed it well, but I can’t see the reason for having such a character, who is shown as a self-inflated blowhard.

The purpose of this well executed film seems to be in having us contemplate where our food comes from, something we usually don’t want to do.

Grade:  A-                                    By Donna R. Copeland