MD won’t be happy either when he finds out that’ll probably be
how he’s travelling as well. His day doesn’t get any better when he falls in
the pond at my folks’ house. L is gutted, that she didn’t get a picture of it.
Somehow I manage to run 7k.
The film is about two very different families from opposite ends of the spectrum as regards class and wealth etc. Without trying to sound too ‘Family Fortunes’, there is the Kim family who live in a small basement apartment, have jobs as pizza box folders and freeload on other people's wifi and there is the Park family who live in a mansion and have servants.
The paths of these two families cross when the Kim’s son
Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) is offered the chance to take over a friend’s job as
tutor to the wealthy Park’s daughter Da-hye (Jung Ziso). He has no
qualifications for this but his artist sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam) is adept at
forgery and supplies him with a fake certificate to bluff his way into the job.
Mrs Park is so impressive with him, now known as ‘Kevin’ and not knowing he’s already seduced her daughter, that she asks him if he could recommend an art tutor for their son (Jung Hyun-jun).
Enter Ki-jung, or rather ‘Jessica’, allegedly the cousin of
a friend and she is quickly hired too. Together they contrive to frame the
family chauffeur, getting him fired for having sex in the family car where ‘Jessica’
has left her underwear. They already have a replacement in mind, their father
(Song Kang-ho).
They then remove the family’s housekeeper after they exploit
her allergic reaction to peaches but passing it off as tuberculosis. When she
is dismissed they install their mum (Chang Hyae-jin) instead.
Although still living mostly in their dank basement apartment,
they all seem to scrub up surprisingly well when they need to. However the
Park’s Son notices that for a bunch of strangers that claim to not know each
other they all smell remarkably alike, and like they have come from a dank basement
apartment.
When the Parks leave on a camping trip, the Kim’s all move
in and revel in the luxuries of their borrowed abode but the old housekeeper appears
at the door saying she has left something in the cellar. This something turns
out to be her husband, who has been secretly living there for years, hiding
from his debts.
Parasite is a clever black comedy that is set up brilliantly
in the first half and which descends into farce and violence in the second half
as rain curtails the Park’s camping trip forcing them to return home as a violent
battle erupts between the Kims and housekeeper's family for parasitic rites to
the mansion.
The violence continues the next day at the Park’s son's
birthday party leading to several deaths and eventually a new family moving
into the mansion while a new resident hides out in the cellar.
It’s wonderful stuff and best seen before the inevitable
Hollywood remake.
(Sunday 7th June)
(Sunday 7th June)
No comments:
Post a Comment