PARASITE!

Hi beautiful people, sorry for not posting yesterday, I had a little problem and my mind wasn't on it. Let's talk about movies, specifically the movie Parasite, another of South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's masterpieces.

It's a 2019 drama, suspense, and dark humor movie, starring Song Kang-ho (Snowpiercer), Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Jang Hye-jin, Choi Woo-shik, and Park So-dam. The film premiered on May 21st, 2019 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it became the first South Korean film to earn the Palme d'Or and the first to do so with the unanimous vote of the jury since 2013 in which it won the movie La vie d'Adèle.

It was launched in South Korea by CJ Entertainment on May 30th, 2019, and in the rest of the world between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. It raised $128 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing launch and the 19th highest grossing film in South Korea.

PRODUCTION

Script:

The idea for Parasite originated in 2013 while working on Snowpiercer, Bong was encouraged by a theater actor friend to write a play. He had been a tutor for the son of a wealthy family in Seoul when he was in his early twenties, and considered turning his experience into a theatrical production. After completing Snowpiercer, Bong wrote a fifteen-page film treatment for the first half of Parasite, which his production assistant Han Jin-won converted into three different drafts of the script.

Filming:

Filming began on May 18th, 2018 and ended 77 days later on September 19th, 2018. The Park family home, which in the film says was designed by a fictional architect named Namgoong Hyeonja, was a set brand new. Production designer Lee Ha-jun said the sun was an important factor in building the outdoor set.

SYNOPSIS:

Both Kim Ki-Taek and his family are out of work. When their oldest son, Ki-Woo, begins teaching private lessons in the Park's wealthy home, the two families, who have a lot in common despite belonging to two completely different worlds, form a relationship of unpredictable results. He begins to sneak the other members of his family into the house, such as his sister as an art teacher, his mother as a domestic worker, and his father as the personal driver of the Park patriarch.

OPINION:

The way in which the appearance of this subject destabilizes the bourgeois order makes us think as much of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem, with the figure of the handsome young man who destroys the harmony of a wealthy family, as in The Servant, by Joseph Losey, with his claustrophobic portrait of how a butler ended up subduing his master. Here the acid radiography of the family institution is formulated from the satirical, the cartoonish, and ends up leading to a wild dissection of the class struggle.

With the title of the film it could be evident that it is about this poor family that takes advantage of a rich family, but as you delve into the plot you will notice of certain characters that play the role of “Parasites” are appearing and that in the end It's not the Kim who are precisely the harvesters, in fact if you think about the Park and how their position at the top prevents them from seeing the real problems of society, or how they are unable to perform the simplest tasks of the house but on the contrary, they have someone to do it for them. Would they not then be the greatest “Parasites” in this story?

Bong Joon-ho hid in his movie more than one meaning. The main one is undoubtedly the criticism of the economic model that is almost impossible to change. If Ki-woo's plan is literally interpreted, this is nothing more than a daydream as the last shot of him ending his letter in the basement shows.

But if there has been anything so far Parasite taught us, it's that everything can go from "good" to "terrible" in no time, especially when it comes to dreams. Ki-woo has ideas and promises that sound good in his head, but the really complicated thing comes when he gets to the practice of it.

I recommend this film 100%, you have a lot of content to digest and criticize. Let me know in the comments your opinion and if you enjoy it.

Here is the Trailer:

XOXO Li.

SNOWPIERCER!

Hello beautiful people, how are you doing? Today I want to talk to you about “Snowpiercer”, a Korean film shot in English, directed by the genius Bong Joon-ho and written by Kelly Masterson.

Bong Joon-ho is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. His film works include Memories Of Murder (2003), The Host (2006) and the science fiction action film Snowpiercer (2013); these last two are among the highest grossing films of all time in South Korea.

In 2017, Metacritic ranked Bong Joon-ho at # 13 on his list of the 25 Best Film Directors of the 21st Century as his films feature awkward themes, dark humor, and sudden mood swings, a perfect mix that doesn't you see a lot today.

In 2019, his film Parasite won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Film at the Academy Awards the same year, making it the first non-English-speaking film to win the category. But I will talk about this majesty in another post, ok, back to Snowpiercer

DEVELOPMENT

During the production of The Host in late 2004 in Hongdae Seoul, Bong visited a comic shop he used to frequent where he met Jean-Marc Rochette, one of the French cartoonists who is the author of the graphic novel "Le Transperceneige". After reading the comics he was fascinated to see how a group of people struggled for survival in cars classified by social status. Bong showed his directing partners Park Chan-wook the complete works and in 2005, the producer Moho Films acquired the rights for the film adaptation.

They say that it only takes 10 minutes to know if a movie is worth it, if in those minutes you are already thinking about something else, then there is nothing to do. Well, with Snowpiercer you don't need 10 minutes because after 5 minutes you are already caught in the plot and you do not even want to move to not miss anything.

SYNOPSIS

In 2014, an attempt to counter global warming through climate engineering is counterproductive, causing an ice age and extinguishing almost all life. The only human survivors are in the Snowpiercer, a massive train that travels the entire world at high speed without ever stopping to avoid freezing and preserve the lives of its passengers created by the transport magnate and inventor, Wilford.

By 2031, elites inhabit the flamboyant front wagons, enjoying all the luxuries and privileges, while the "scum" inhabits the tail in sordid and brutal conditions under the watchful eye of Wilford's guards; something we could relate to in this society.

This film features Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Ah-sung Ko, Jamie Bell, Song Kang-ho, Ed Harris, Octavia Spencer, Sir John Hurt, and a cameo by Jean-Marc Rochette himself (author of the novel on which the film was based).

I like Science fiction because, in the world of imagination, anything goes and, with the proper justification, even the most unthinkable, manages to make sense within a suitable framework. In this case, the class struggle can reach an expression as epic and emotional as it is dark and perverse. It is a crazy techno punk story in which you can discover something as evident as the commandment that we citizens respect, because things are like this and thus we have been told "each one in his place" (the first in front and the others behind).

All great actors, excellent direction, impressive visuals and an exact soundtrack result in a magnificent film that without prejudice and without fear is launched to tell an unusual, dramatic story, full of nuances, analogies, ulterior motives and interpretations.

Those who have not had the opportunity to see it, I say that you are missing something incredible, something you have not seen before and that will make you enjoy every second.

Trailer of the movie:

There is the series based on the movie and it is on Netflix, but personally I am not a fan of it, I feel that the narrative is a bit confusing and lthe show lost the symbolism that both the Rochette novel and the Bong Joon-ho movie have .

Anyway, the invitation is to look for this movie, watch it, digest it and give it a critique and if you want to watch the series, we can also discuss it.

XOXO Li.