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9.2/10
FilmFascination Rating
I don’t say this often and I don’t really know how else to emphasize this, but I have never quite seen a movie like this. This might be a cliched statement now, but how else can I convince you that this movie is actually quite different?
Kim Ki-taek and his family are on the edge of poverty in their basement house. They find a new gig of folding pizza boxes for a delivery company to make some extra cash. It is evident from the way they live that they are cheap. Like the way, Kim suggests leaving the windows open when the neighbourhood is being fumigated for some free solution to their infestation. Kim Ki-woo’s (son of Kim Ki-taek) life changes when a friend offers him a job opportunity as an English tutor for a young girl born into the wealthy Park family. The visually stimulating contrast between the clean, spacious Park home and the cramped Kim living arrangement is not only symbolic but also subtly captivating, never overtly drawing attention to it.
After forging some documents, Kim Ki-woo with his new name as Kevin steps into the rich Park family. But he has deeper motives. He quickly convinces the naïve mother Yeon-kyo, that the son needs an art therapist, which lands Kevin’s sister Jessica a job. Soon with some fake identities, well-rehearsed plans, and some extreme manipulation, the whole Kim family take over different jobs in the Park household. It seems unbelievable and is yet pretty convincing. Time after time, the Kim family seems to cross one line after another but once everything settles in, it seems to be perfectly fine. But can the poor really just step into the world of the rich that easily?
Bong Joon-hoo makes you comfortable in the big, beautiful house and keeps you delusional of the ‘Everything’s fine’ state. That is because we have been made to think from the perspective of Kim’s family alone till now. And, all of a sudden, things take a creepy turn you never would have caught coming. There is a price for everything. Then onwards the movie just keeps getting darker, creepier, and gloomier. The brutality of real society bangs you on your face. The smiles of happiness turn into eerie smiles of vengeance. As the movie proceeded I got the feeling of something slowly crawling under my skin (I don’t know how else to express it).
Perhaps something to be admired about the movie is that all the characters are understandable and sympathetic to some degree. There are no clear heroes or villains in the movie. It is just that the social class levels have created this big gap between the rich and the poor. This yawning gap transforms into jealousy, fear and creates evident differences. I would have loved to talk so much more about details depicting this but the purpose of this article is to make you watch Great Movies like this one. And I would certainly not like to spoil this exhilarating experience for you.
More than probably any other movie I have seen, this film put me through so many different emotional states during its runtime. It has warmth, love, comedy, fear, shock, and much more. And above all, it does so without ever being tonally inconsistent. It does not jump from one emotion to the other. Instead, it eases into each one of them deeply and transitions into another so smoothly. This makes the movie extremely entertaining throughout and brings that element of unpredictability. I never knew what to expect next and it just kept surprising me. It is at times too much to handle and I was afraid that it was going to fuck it up. But Bong Joon Hoo keeps it so much under control and it is satisfying to watch it unfold.
In the end, I don’t know what was right or what was wrong, nor do I know if whatever happened was fair. All I know is that it is a brutally honest reflection of what our society has become and nothing was shown that is not possible. Before you know it, the director has pushed you into thinking about every detail the movie shows. And that turns out to be the movie’s most outstanding achievement. The thought has crept into my mind ever since the film ended and I don’t think it is going to leave easily.
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