Parasite (Gisaengchung)

Director Bong Joon-ho

Bong Joon-ho at Cannes winning the Palme d'Or prize

PARASITE (Gisaengchung)              B+                  

South Korea  (132 mi)  2019  ‘Scope  d: Bong Joon-ho

Following last year’s festival circuit success of Hirokazu Koreeda’s heavily acclaimed Shoplifters (Manbiki kazoku) (2018) and Lee Chang-dong’s underrated 2018 Top Ten List #8 Burning (Beoning), they apparently paved the way for Bong Joon-ho’s new film receiving plenty of accolades after winning the prestigious Palme d’Or prize at Cannes (by unanimous decision), the first South Korean film to earn that distinction, earning a whopping $70 million dollars in South Korea before its American release, devising a satiric black comedy that reveals a devastating chasm between rich and poor.  What starts out as a cleverly ingenious scam from an impoverished family to fake their way, one by one, into working for a filthy rich family without them ever realizing they are related, eventually goes awry, veering into unconventional Hollywood horror, becoming so over the top that the film deflects from the exquisitely dramatic build-up of character development to superbly constructed scenes of mayhem, becoming a perversely well-made free-for-all of wretched malaise, given a kind of apocalyptic thriller twist where the world is turned on its end, creating boldly audacious mood shifts not seen since Marin Ade’s 2017 Top Ten List #2 Toni Erdmann, allowing all the pulp fiction tension to dissipate, leaving audiences quietly dazed afterwards.  This is a more playful version of Jean Genet’s One Act play The Maids, loosely based upon the infamous Papin sisters, expanded into a sharply written comic satire on class divisions and the principles of social order in Claude Chabrol’s La Cérémonie (1995), a domestic thriller standing somewhere between comedy and horror.  While Chabrol offers a more classically eloquent portrait of scathing bourgeois satire, like Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, where the lower class servants sarcastically make fun of the idyll rich, Bong’s film has a few more rough edges, where the troublesome family at the root of an otherwise loving family drama overindulges their reach, biting off more than they can chew, leading to unexpected circumstances beyond their control, becoming a morality play, an exasperated comedy gone awry, leading to tragic results.  The Kim family in question is headed by the father, Song Kang-ho as Kim Ki-taek, an unemployed chauffeur.  Song is a recognizable, high-profile South Korean actor who has worked previously with Bong as the bungling detective in Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok) (2003) and the slow-witted father in THE HOST (2006), but also Lee Chang-dong as the quirky mechanic in Secret Sunshine (2007) and Park Chan-wook in various films, while getting his start with Hong Sang-soo.   His no-nonsense wife, a former hammer-throw champion from the medal on the wall, is Jang Hye-jin as Chung-sook, while Choi Woo-shik is the older brother Ki-woo, and Park So-dam is the younger sister Ki-jung, both failing their college entrance exams.  The Kim family lives in a cramped basement folding pizza boxes to earn a living, where we get an idea what they’re about when we discover they’re stealing the upstair neighbor’s Wi-Fi connection, initially befuddled when the neighbor changes their password, finding an active signal in an elevated section of the far corner of the room. 

This family is not afraid to use crude language to comic effect, while they’re most proud of Ki-jung’s unique gift of forgery where she’s able to produce professional looking documents, giving them fake credentials they’ve never actually achieved.  This comes in handy when a friend who’s leaving to study in America recommends Ki-woo for a job teaching English as a personal tutor for a teenage daughter of a wealthy Park family.  Realizing they have an artistically inclined young son that could use some art therapy, he recommends a noted specialist that just happens to be his sister.  Weaseling their way into the Park family was easy, but their working techniques are masterful, playing on the elitist ambitions of the rich, becoming sympathetic figures while literally hoodwinking this family for needed cash.  What’s amazing about the wealthy family is the grandiosity of their home, a sleek and modern look designed by an architect, given the appearance of a Glass House with floor to ceiling windows looking out onto the luscious greenery of their back lawn, literally an oasis, or an idyllic paradise on earth.  The all-knowing housekeeper, Lee Jung-eun as Gook Moon-gwang, is a holdover from when the original architect lived there, knowing every crack and crevice in the home.  The family’s isolation and quirky behavior, however, may remind viewers of Yorgos Lanthimos, a filmmaker whose characters defy comprehension, inventing surrealist imagery to accompany their outrageous behavior.  While the boring Park parents are incredibly gullible, so easy to manipulate, they generate little sympathy, as they have it all, apparently, but don’t seem to deserve it, as they simply don’t have the capacity to empathize.  Resorting to deviously underhanded methods, the Kim family entraps both the family driver and the housekeeper, causing both to be fired, their jobs filled by casual acquaintances, recommended professionals they just happen to know, bringing in expert driver Kim as the chauffeur and their suddenly transformed mother with her newly coiffed hair as the housekeeper, so everyone has a foot in the door carrying out their mission with military precision.  While they gush over their apparent success, the kid figures them out (though no one believes him), as each hired employee brings with them a peculiar smell that is not particularly agreeable, something akin to a poor man’s smell that’s more evocative of their own filthy subterranean quarters that can never be scrubbed clean, sending them scampering to use different deodorants and shampoos in an attempt to mask the odor.  But it’s a prevailing theme that exists throughout the film, a sharp critique of capitalism, with the rich and poor deviously dependent on the other, where humiliation is a bought and sold commodity that comes at a price, slowly taking its toll over time, with the camera cleverly moving back and forth between the two homes that couldn’t be more strikingly different, as if from two separate and starkly unequal worlds, a return to Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW (1963) disparity, becoming a mind-bending yet playful journey through various genre films, with the director in full display of his myriad of talents.    

 

The turning point occurs when the Park family decides to take their son camping, allowing the Kim’s to bask in the glory of this immaculate estate, raiding the icebox and liquor cabinet, picnicking on the lawn as we watch Chung-sook do a spectacular hammer throw before having a gloried Buñuelian feast mimicking the infamous “Last Supper” sequence in VIRIDIANA (1961) on the premises, imagining themselves as the permanent occupants, growing deliriously drunk and deluded as their accumulated trash and dirty dishes start piling up, leaving a mess everywhere you look while they’re entranced by watching the passing storm out the window, hypnotically mesmerized until the doorbell rings, immediately sending them into panic mode.  It turns out to be Moon-gwang, the dispelled housekeeper pleading in a raging downpour that she left something behind in the basement, asking to come inside.  While the rest of the family hides, Moon-gwang disappears into the blackness of the basement, which turns out to be a secret bunker, like an air-raid shelter, built in the event of an attack from North Korea with its own living quarters inside, which is where her husband, Park Myung-hoon as Geun-sae, has been hiding for years to evade ravenous loan sharks.  In one of the more deranged moments, he does an outrageously demented impersonation of his wife as a North Korean news announcer.  Incredulous at the discovery, the rest of the family awkwardly falls down the stairs in utter astonishment, with Moon-gwang cleverly capturing their appearance on her phone, threatening to expose the entire family, turning the tables, gaining the upper hand, basically ordering them to do whatever she pleases, suggesting even amongst the poor there’s always a power dynamic, a Darwinian survival of the fittest, all of which quickly changes when the Park family calls to announce their arrival in 8-minutes, driven away from their campsite by the storm.  Pandemonium sets in, where hilarity quickly turns to tragedy, including an all-out assault for control of their phone, playing nasty, as unexpected consequences ensue while they’re racing against time to clean up their mess.  The fear of being exposed drives them into temporary insanity, completely altering the look of the film, as the frenzied battle sets the stage for new territory, where the hyper-exaggerated delirium recalls Kim Ki-Young’s iconic Korean B-movie masterpiece THE HOUSEMAID (1960), where a supposedly stable household is upended by twisted transgressions that for the most part remain under the surface, carefully balancing tension and claustrophobia until all hell breaks loose, again coinciding with a mammoth storm of epic POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) proportions, literally flooding the lower depths of the Kim neighborhood, drowning out any safe space.  Mixing the absurdity of surrealism with graphic South Korean horror, Bong stages an infamous birthday party sequence for the young Park child that quickly goes wildly off the rails in a circus-like spectacle gone terribly wrong, creating an utterly devastating catastrophe of legendary status.  While the finale meanders a bit before finally coming to a quietly somber closing, it never achieves the moral complexity of serious contemplation, but it does provide the razzle dazzle of provocation, becoming a socially conscious parable for our times.  

Pain and Glory (Dolor y Gloria)

Director Pedro Almodóvar

Almodóvar with actor Asier Etxeandia in the background

Almodóvar working with actor Asier Etxeandia

Almodóvar working with actress Julieta Serrano and Antonio Banderas

Almodóvar with Antonio Banderas

Almodóvar surrounded by Asier Etxeandia (left) and Antonio Banderas

Pedro Almodóvar surrounded by Raúl Arévalo (left) and Penélope Cruz

PAIN AND GLORY (Dolor y Gloria)                      B                    

Spain  (113 mi)  2019  d: Pedro Almodóvar

In something of a playful nod to Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963), Almodóvar attempts to express a somewhat fictionalized autobiographical portrait, much of it shot in his own apartment in Madrid, with an overly self-centered Antonio Banderas (winner of the Best Actor award at Cannes), showing a sense of benign resignation as the protagonist Salvador Mallo, wearing many of the director’s recognizable outfits, depicting the life of an aging filmmaker (Almodóvar is now 70) who is suddenly incapacitated by a deluge of maladies, much of it incurred in the aftermath of spinal-fusion surgery, including insomnia, migraines, acid reflux, ulcers, tinnitus, chronic back pain with associated nerve and muscle aches, along with inexplicable choking fits where he can barely breathe, with an animated drawing revealing all the ways the body is afflicted, crushing up pain pills in his food, leaving him dispirited and overly morose.  As a result, he is homebound, barely ever making public appearances, preferring to live the life of a hermit, unable to write or tap into his creative forces, as he’s overcome by the chronic pain he endures.  Filmmaking is out of the question, as it requires physical strength he simply doesn’t have anymore.  So he sits around on his ass and dreams of his childhood, which plays out onscreen, using frequent flashbacks of significant moments in his life throughout the film, all of which help define who he is today, a man supposedly at a crossroads.  Ironically, this creative paralysis coincides with the restoration of a film he made thirty years ago, now considered a masterpiece, which is being rescreened at Madrid’s Spanish Cinematheque with a great deal of public fanfare, including a scheduled Q & A after the film with the director and lead actor, which just happens to coincide with the recent restoration of Almodóvar’s own Law of Desire (La ley del deseo) (1987), recalling his battles with actor Eusebio Poncela (but also starring a young Antonio Banderas).  The problem is the two haven’t spoken to each other in 30 years due to a fallout during the shoot over how the protagonist was portrayed, as the actor, Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia, with a De Niro ferocity), played him dramatically heavy while the director was expecting something comic and light.  Having reviewed the film again for the first time in all those many years, he’s come to regret his initial viewpoint, as the actor nails the performance, providing more dramatic intensity than he had anticipated.  So swallowing his pride, he makes a trip to the actor’s residence, arriving unannounced, causing a great deal of skepticism, as he’s not exactly greeted warmly.  Alberto, however, introduces him to an old habit of his, smoking heroin, which Salvador takes to with unbridled enthusiasm, like the answer to his prayers, as it alleviates the pain better than all known doctor remedies, so he’s immediately hooked, spending days with the actor, who has to literally kick him out to send him home, where he’s immediately at a loss.  In a somewhat hilarious scene, he’s takes a cab into the gritty, crime-infested neighborhoods inhabited by groups of blacks, buying drugs off the street from the first person seen, coinciding with a police raid on the street, violently apprehending another suspect, where it’s like a whole other world than the museum-like sanctuary of his own home. 

Needless to say, Salvador and Alberto spend nearly every waking hour together, with Alberto famously commenting that his drug supply is delivered to his door with the ease of ordering a pizza.  Nodding out in a dream reverie, his drug use seems to arouse a series of memories, all happening inside his head, while Alberto, having nothing better to do, explores what’s on Salvador’s computer, discovering a short play entitled Addiction that he thinks is brilliantly written and could help resuscitate his near extinct career, as he identifies so passionately with the emotional journey.  Salvador finds it too autobiographically revealing, preferring to avoid public scrutiny.  When the two don’t show up for the scheduled Q & A, but are instead phoned at the last minute, they are put on speakers, amplifying the questions and answers for all sitting in the audience to hear, still smoking their drugs while they speak, with Salvador foolishly confessing the issue he had with Alberto’s performance was his heroin use, as it was something as a director he steered away from, but did go on to acknowledge his opinion of his performance has changed over the years, but by then Alberto is ready to rip his head off, incensed by this public revelation that could squash his career, literally hating the grounds this man walked upon.  So after a brief détente another Berlin Wall was constructed between them.  This little interlude is hilarious, but fictionalized, as Almodóvar was a child of the 80’s when cocaine use was rampant, which was his particular drug of choice, active on many different fronts, steering away from heroin, though some among his acting ensemble used it, where he witnessed how it interfered in personal relationships, as heroin users became untrustworthy and completely unreliable.  Very ironic, then, that it is portrayed as his saving grace, the missing cure for all that ails him.  His drug experiences take him back to when he was 9-years old, when his mother (Penélope Cruz) led him to another village, following his father (Raúl Arévalo) and his search for work, ending up living inside a cave, which needs some remodeling, discovering a local laborer who is illiterate, Eduardo (César Vicente), with his mother offering Salvador’s services teaching him to read and write if Eduardo would whitewash the walls and help install a needed sink.  This arrangement works perfectly, with little Salvador demonstrating excellent teaching proficiency while Eduardo’s work really changes the look of the place.  But the scene with the most profound influence has to do with Eduardo stripping naked to wash himself, an image that still lingers in the back of his mind.  The interrelation between the two is exquisitely expressed, each respecting what the other can do, with little Salvador posing for a drawing made by Eduardo, just sitting in a chair reading a book, yet it’s a charming portrait, exhibiting an artistic flair. 

Well-acted, nicely edited, and beautifully shot by José Luis Alcaine, with the full color spectrum of Almodóvar colors brightly utilized, creating a dazzling artistic design that heightens one’s appreciation for the film, which could just as easily be entitled Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man.  A change of heart sends Salvador back to Alberto’s home, script in hand, offering him a chance to perform it (removing his name as the author), a one-man show, drawing record crowds, where we see a piece of it, an intimate examination of the young life of the artist, including a romantic love affair with another man in Madrid back in the 80’s when his love couldn’t save the man from his heroin addiction, yet it’s presented with such idyllic urgency as if it was happening right before our eyes.  Alberto receives a surprise visit backstage from the absent lover in the play who is in search of Salvador after all these years, Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia), who felt every word of the play, as if knowing it by heart, culminating in a visit to Salvador’s Madrid apartment, where this belated rendezvous is an understated expression of what the passing years do to the body, but not the spirit, which remains as youthful and invigorated as ever, but Federico has a life and family to return to in Buenos Aires, where he runs a restaurant.  The eloquence of the visit cannot be forgotten, as it’s a place where memories and reality merge, having a profound effect on Salvador afterwards, throwing away his drugs, revisiting his doctor, receiving the needed medical treatment, assisted by his good friend Mercedes (Norva Navas), his personal assistant that arranges everything, as he attempts to restore the needed equilibrium in his life, rediscovering his creative impulses, as he starts writing again, where we see the title, “El Deseo (Desire),” named after the Almodóvar production company, though it’s actually entitled The First Desire.  As he’s about to have throat surgery, he has flashbacks to his aging mother (Julieta Serrano), recalling a promise made to her that he would never fulfill, as she died tragically several years ago before he could return her back to the village where she was born, something that has eternally haunted him.  But it’s something he tells her near the end that haunts the rest of us, “I’ve failed you simply by being as I am,” a joltingly humane confession with profound implications.  As if by accident, Mercedes shows him a painting discovered earlier in a flea market that has just been sitting around, as if in storage, with no one having a chance to look at it.  With a short note written on the back, it’s Eduardo’s drawing of him as a child, turned into a watercolor, paying a debt of thanks for his help, where as if by some miracle, it has finally reached its rightful owner, likely sent years ago, perhaps found amongst his mother’s things.  It’s a touching moment that only Salvador could possibly understand, fraught with hidden meaning, merging with the subject of his new project, The First Desire, as we see earlier scenes of himself as a child along with his mother, but as the camera pulls back we see he is filming these moments, back to working again, as the balance is finally restored, where this intimate portrait beautifully provides a poetic arc of his life.