Joon-ho Bong is a director with a particularly surreal and unique style whose movies can always be considered a genre of their own; and that is because one cannot file them into any category as they seem to tackle every different aspect of life and jump from one genre to the next. Being familiar with his works Snowpiercer as well as my most favourite Okja, I was sure to expect a quite exciting ride entering the premiere of the 25th Athens International Film Festival that took place on Wednesday, 18 September in Pallas Theatre in Athens.
This time, Joon-ho Bong was coming fresh from his recent and unanimous win of the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, so expectations for a movie that managed to win the hearts of such an eclectic jury were high. I am happy to report that the win was most deserved. But first, a small word of caution: the director sent a letter to the organisers of the AIFF asking both them and the viewers to keep the spoilers for his movie to the minimum. Considering my utmost distaste for spoilers I will keep this review small and to the point.
Parasite is a somewhat metaphorical characterisation of the main personas: a family of four, that lives in a semi-basement and does any job conceivable in order only to survive and get basic luxuries such as data on their mobiles, instead of aiming at ameliorating their lives. This is how we meet them, sitting on the floor of their meagre home, folding pizza boxes for a price.
The son Ki-woo, played by Woo-sik Choi soon finds a job as an english tutor for a rather wealthy schoolgirl. The moment he gets in the extraordinarily palatial and opulent house of the Park family, we start seeing the plot unravelling. Ki-woo is about to cling himself onto the Parks, and with the help of his family they are going to skim them off as much as they can by exploiting the gullibility of their wealthy counterparts.
Seems simple, no? Well, Parasite is a tremendous combination of laugh-out-loud comedy, thought-provoking drama and surprisingly enough, horror. It is an extremely enjoyable film with just the right amount of weirdness to make it not only unforgettable but also one of the best films of the year.
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