"Parasite" is the mashup of "Shoplifters" and "Burning" we never knew we wanted
Monday, November 4, 2019 at 5:30PM by Lynn Lee
For a 132-minute Korean film that isn’t yet in wide release, Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite is already one of the most talked-about movies of the season, and for good reason. Alas, most of the reasons can’t really be discussed without major spoilers – but that’s all the more incentive to see it as soon as it hits a theater near you.
When I saw it, I loved it, which I wasn’t necessarily expecting considering I hadn’t been a fan of either The Host or Snowpiercer, arguably the director's most popular films. Despite its run time, Parasite is tighter than those films, and its tonal shifts and genre-melding smoother. It's also more focused, its treatment of one of Bong’s favorite themes – class disparities – razor-sharp yet also oddly compassionate, ultimately condemning the system rather than any individual players.
Parasite, which took the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, also felt to me like the deranged evil twin of last year’s Palme d’Or winner, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters...
