Upon the recommendation of his course teacher, Child 1 and I have both attended a local showing of ‘Parasite’ (purely for the purpose of assisting his Film Studies A level preparation, you understand).
Maybe it is because I lack the insight that arises from studying the film industry and the process of movie-making, but I seem to be in a minority in not being in awe of this Oscar Best Picture.
Whereas so many are salivating at the movement between film genres that Joon-Ho employs, I could not understand the fuss. Yes, there is at least one major move left-field, but other films have performed that manoeuvre with equal dexterity: recently David Fincher’s ‘Gone Girl’, and deservedly more famously, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’.
As with another gushingly-accepted effort, 1917, I found this movie interesting at times, with a steady, progressive and relatively predictable build to the plot, before a significant reveal. Indeed, the inevitability of the early part of the storyline seemed to stall the pace of the film, resulting in a desire to see it get a hurry on. Yes, there was some delight in watching how the next signposted development was advanced by the characters, but not enough to keep me wholly satisfied. It did not help that I felt no sympathy for any of the protagonists in the story, and really cared nothing for those whose fate we were invited to consider, especially in the last minutes of the film.
Given the hullabaloo and genre-shifting, I am unsure if I was supposed to be surprised by a very late second ‘reveal’ in the final section of the piece. However, it was again so obvious that this was going to be the final outcome, I may be simply looking for more supposed complexity to the film than the director intended.
When I consider the effort as a whole, I experienced a sometimes (but not necessarily continuously) interesting narrative arc, a singular approach to telling the story, with a few good ideas sprinkled in that invited further reflection after the end credits (who exactly IS the parasite?). However, like my reaction to 1917, I thought it presented nothing especially ground-breaking and deserving of the cacophonous fanfare that has accompanied it.
So, I left the cinema unmoved by it all and the destiny of its unlikeable players, struggling to relate to the huge reaction it has received.
I can only wonder if it beat out the equally-heralded 1917 to this year’s Oscar because the Academy felt the need to respond to the criticism it received about a lack of diversity in the wake of its announcement of its nominations.
By the way, Film Student Child 1 said that they had left the cinema undecided about the movie, wondering if they had enjoyed it or no.