Parasite – How a South Korean Film Changed the Landscape

Sometimes, a film is just a film. Then, films like Parasite happen. Parasite premiered at the 72^nd Cannes Film Festival to huge acclaim. It won the Palme d’Or unanimously, becoming the first South Korean film to win the prestigious award. When early reviews hit the web, waves of raves flooded the film community by storm.

Before watching the film, I suspected that, as always, the critics were exaggerating their reactions because of festival fever, and Cannes is no ordinary film festival. I decided to thread lightly because I didn’t want to get excited over a film that might end up being a false alarm. Only the reaction of two well-known critics that generally don’t engage in exaggerating raves gave me a little hope that this film was the real deal. At last the day came I first watched this film and… holy gifts!!!

The Recognition

Parasite was the 2019-2020 Awards Season darling, and it wasn’t undeserved. The film really was that good. It was so good that people feared it wasn’t going to go far in the Best Picture race come Oscar nominations morning. It made sense. It was a critics favorite, it wasn’t in English, and the competition was more traditional to AMPAS tastes. Getting nominated to something other than Best International Film was a huge challenge.

Then the film hit theaters and people began to love it and talk about it. Yes, ordinary filmgoers were talking and raving about a film not made by a big studio or by a big streaming service, oh, and not in English. It’s not the first time this happens, of course, but something was different this time.

The Year Before

The Green Book (2018) win left most people with a bad taste in their mouth, even when the film was liked by a lot of ordinary filmgoers. That year’s Oscar ceremony was forgettable at best, except for the huge upset pulled by Olivia Colman over Glenn Close, which was a little sweet and sour for those that wanted Close to win, but also Colman. A tie has never been wished so much before.

There were great wins too by Regina King, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spike Lee, Ruth E. Carter, and Alfonso Cuarón, who then again won Best Director, this time for Roma. That film was considered by many to be the favorite to win Best Picture at the Oscars. That would’ve happened if it wasn’t heavily attacked for being boring, not in English, and, of course, for being a danger to the art of cinema itself. Because it was a streaming service film that could harm the theater experience as we know it, or something like that a famous director and friends said. 

Ironically, the biggest threat to the theater experience was a year away from happening. When a small virus entered a human via a bat, or so they say, and has held us hostage in our homes since. Literally harming most businesses outside our houses, including movie theaters. Thankfully, we were able to witness history before all this happened. Roma lost, but so did the Academy.

And Then…

2020 had to be the year where they fix one of the biggest mistakes they have ever done as an organization. Enter Parasite: a film that has been loved by everyone, that has been smartly campaigned (at the cost of another great film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire), that has won lots of critics awards, and also surprised at many guild awards by only being nominated, if this isn’t it, I don’t know who could’ve been AMPAS savior. 

First time I watched this film I didn’t know anything about it, nothing at all, except it won at Cannes, that’s it. I didn’t even know it was made by the director of Okja (2017), Snowpiercer (2013), and a film that I’ve been told is the real masterpiece of his career, Memories of Murder (2003). At the time the only director I thought of when South Korea was mentioned was Park Chan-wook, of Oldboy (2003) fame. Lee Chang-dong’s Burning (2018) had also make an impact on me recently, so I was eager to keep watching more films from the South Korean film industry.

The fact that I didn’t know anything about Parasite made the experience of watching it more fulfilling. When the midpoint of the film hits, I was awestruck by the surprising plot twist and also with how it was done. The final sequence of the film, plus the impact of it, left me with a sensation that I have just witnessed something extraordinary.

The Influences

At the time, I was taking a class in college about Alfred Hitchcock’s cinema. We discussed his history, his filmmaking style, and characteristics that made his films, well, so characteristically Hitchcockian. One of the many traits we discussed is his use of stairs as a symbol and motif. First film that comes to mind when talking about his films that use stairs as a motif is Psycho (1960). To some extent, Vertigo (1958) also qualifies, so does his underrated Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Best Picture winner Rebecca (1940). However, there’s an earlier film in Hitchcock’s career that uses stairs perfectly to symbolize the difference between social classes, 1927’s The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.

While watching Parasite, I couldn’t stop thinking about this film and Hitchcock in general, since Bong Joon-ho and his economical way of doing shots reminded me a lot the revered director. I wasn’t the only one who thought about this, since there are a lot of videos in the web that analyze Parasite form beginning to end, and many mention the use of stairs to symbolize class division. 

Another film that Parasite reminded me of, although its relationship isn’t as obvious, is Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game (1939). Although the film deals more with relationships, The Rules of the Game also talks about class division, which we can see with the aristocrats who live upstairs and the service who live downstairs. A film that’s very famous because of how it came to exist, it also highlights how Renoir directed. His use of visual depth and how he also was economic with his shots – sometimes panning to move from one side of the camera to the other, or simply putting two stories in the same frame by using visual depth – is something Bong did with Parasite too. Although it is not mentioned in the films that inspired Bong’s masterpiece, The Rules of the Game is an influence indirectly because of how it made creative impressions on some of those filmmakers that Bong himself admires. 

The Awards Season

My love for Parasite grew with every viewing. Once I knew what happened, I went to the cinema various times just to watch the reactions of others who were watching it for the first time – and also to enjoy it again. I recommended the film to family, coworkers, students, everyone.

Come Oscars nominations morning and Parasite overperforms. But so does Joker, a film that could’ve been better. I was a Roma supporter last season and I wasn’t ready to be gut-punched by the Academy again. So in my mind I was very happy with the nominations, but accepting that maybe 1917 was going to win the big prize. No hopes up.

After winning PGA, DGA, Golden Globes, and BAFTA, it made so much sense 1917 would win. Also it was a war film, and AMPAS is a sucker for them. The question was: would the Academy yet again miss the opportunity to award a non-English spoken film that’s actually the best film of the year because of a language barrier?

The Subtitles Barrier

“Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” That’s what Bong Joon-ho said when he won Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes. A quote that many thought was a huge hit toward the Hollywood elite that always think “America first and then the others.” But also directed at those ordinary filmgoers that are afraid of watching international films not in English because they have to work to understand it.

It’s ironic because most of the world has to do this to watch Hollywood films. Including places like Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony in the Caribbean whose main language is Spanish. It’s also where I’m from and although I’m able to understand, speak, write, and read in English, not everyone in Puerto Rico does, so subtitles are a must. Therefore, many in the world are open to watching films that are not in their mother tongue, because subtitles are a normal and necessary thing.

History Made

The Academy must have heard, because in the night of February 9^th, 2020, they didn’t break our hearts again. Although it missed an important win in Film Editing (losing to very worthy Ford v Ferrari), no one imagined that when Spike Lee came out in purple and gold to announce Sam Mendes as Best Director, he was actually going to excitedly yell Bong Joon-ho’s name instead. It was electrifying, everyone was standing, everyone was happy. Was this a sign?

Bong’s speech thanking grandmaster Martin Scorsese and the other nominees was a memorable one. He even admitted he didn’t expect to be up again after already winning the suspected win in both International Feature.

Then, it happened. Against all odds, Parasite became the first not in the English language film ever to win Best Picture. I yelled at the top of my lungs, and I know so many also did. It was beautiful. We won. 

That win opened the door to the world, to the magnificent and big world of cinema. South Korea’s film industry is finally being recognized for all the great work they’ve been doing from the early 21^st Century till now. Cannes did it first, then the others followed, including AMPAS. This win hopefully will give chance to more international recognition from AMPAS in the category they most feel proud of. As long as they don’t regress to mediocrity, like two years ago.

Although films don’t need awards recognition to be admired, most of the greats were left empty-handed during their time, it’s fun to watch a favorite film of your win it all. It’s even more satisfying when you don’t expect such a wonderful gift, just like Moonlight (2016) and Parasite did. A toast for more wonderful and relatable films, especially from around the world!