Parasite (2019)

I watched it at the local art house cinema last night. Unfortunately, I bought the $4.99 bag of gummy bears at the concession stand which I polished off in the first 30 minutes of the movie. I felt so bloated and uncomfortable thereafter that I really didn’t enjoy the film. I’ll never learn.

 

My elaborate plan to take your seat almost worked.

 

Saw it yesterday. WOW! Best movie I've seen in years.

 

not that good for me... it felt like 4 hours long, three or four false endings, and more script inconsistencies than a Marvel movie. this was not for me

 

Why oh why didn't you read the customer recommendations first!
Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Haribo SUGAR FREE Classic Gummi Bears, 1 Lb

 

Good movie, but I wasn’t blown away like critics and many here. It did whet my appetite for the upcoming Knives Out, though!

 

Excellent movie. I expected the third act would be surprising and it was more surprising than I expected.

 

It was too much a surprise and unrealistic but then it needs to deliver its social commentary. Don’t want to spoil it and indeed this is a must see movie.

 

Best movie I’ve seen in 2019.

 

Incredible movie. Such a great statement about social strata. I want to watch the film again, this time watching the camera movements and such. Reading the subtitles made it a little difficult to do that.

 

So of all things my question is this (spoiler ahead): when the original housekeeper first returns, her face is beat up - swollen/black eye, cut lip etc. - and when her husband first sees her at some point he says “what happened to your face?” and she says “tell you later.” So, other than she’s of the lower social strata, and so she might have come across a bad dude trying to survive/earn a dime or whatever, was there any specific significance to that, story-wise? I don’t remember it being answered.

 

It's in the deleted scenes? ... because it's never explained within the movie.

 

While visiting an area that actually HAS an awesome art house theater (mine does not, for 100 miles in any direction - count your blessings if you have one, or more than one), I saw "A Hidden Life" and "Parasite" on consecutive days. I thought "Parasite" was terrific - particularly the first half of it. Some of it reminded me a bit of Kurosawa's "High and Low", one of my favorite films of his.

 

Well, I liked it, certainly some interesting ideas...

 

I thought it was alright, but not as exceptional as others feel it is. I couldn't help be reminded of the made-for-TV movie Bad Ronald.

 

I don't understand what the fuss is about "Parasite"; it has a lot of inconsistencies.

Spoiler: spoiler

Eg: if some of you know rich people and/or businessmen/entrepreneurs, well, they don't accept strangers in their circle of trust, of their lives, so easily, let alone allow somebody to tutor their kids if that somebody shows a photoshopped and xeroxed document as their only CV and implying that no further research is necessary. They also waste no money.

I know it's a film and all but.. this is ridiculous. Don't even get me started about the fact that people seeming to have no significant cultural background can teach. Or can teach art. Or that a housewife from a poor family, living in an undeground shack suddendly turns into a skilled housekeeper able to manage a mansion. Or somebody that doesn't even own a car can drive a luxury Mercedes car after a short trip at a car showroom pretending they want to buy one.

After the rainstorm, with their house covered in water, dirt and with an exploding toilet, they had to spend the night at a gym.. yet they were able to get dressed for the morning after and show up at the employer's house.

As for the "big reveal", part of the power system is in the "underground" apartment, nobody noticed it? And of course you sell a house and don't mention to the buyers you have a bunker, just the housekeeper knows! Also, that looks a recenty built mansion. No building project available for the buyers to see? The people that set up the power and water systems, the bricklayers were killed or promised big money to keep the secret? Come on! It would have been maybe acceptable if the house was in the country, with no other buildings in proximity, butin "Parasite" there's a neighborhood and plenty of other houses all around.

And did I miss something or Mr. Park basically gets killed just for saying his employee is smelly?

 

Nitpicking the plausibility of movies is a pedestrian way of criticizing them. Especially when it should be obvious from the style and tone of the film (not to mention the director’s previous work) that it’s not meant to be a piece of kitchen sink realism.

 

Bong says there was tons of other story material he came up with that there wasn’t time to include, including the explanation for this, and that’s why he’s now involved with this American TV version, the exact nature of which hasn’t been revealed yet:

Bong Joon Ho Reveals Epic Plans for ‘Parasite’ Series as a Six-Hour Movie

It doesn’t seem like he actually shot any of the material explaining it.... so I guess he thought it would be fun to still give her the beat up face and allude to other developments occurring offscreen.

 

I took that part as her way of garnering enough sympathy and perceived weakness to be allowed into the house.

 

Well, I'd say it depends on the kind of movie. Eg, I have no problems with the magical stuff on the Harry Potter movies because they follow their own logic and..it's magic! No nitpicking the plausibility of most science fiction movies because, that's "fiction".
Usually not nitpicking the plausibility of what happens in an animated movie, eg even talking animals and so on. Even if I have to admit I just don't get the logic in the "Cars" movies; in fact I'd like to know who built the roads, the buildings, how's possible that there are talking cars and how new cars are manufactured (or...born? ).

But for a movie that seems to happen in the real world, they're asking too much suspension of disbelief. Imho.
Those that have enjoyed this film, good for you. While not a bad movie, the amount of the accolades received and the next ones that probably are going to arrive on 02/10/2020 represents a major head scratcher.

Actually, I was laughing for most of the movie noticing an inconsistency followed by another one, then another one...and when I thought it was over...

Spoiler: spoiler

The guy that got that stone on his head, not once but twice and with a floor covered in all that blood coming from his head, seemed to recover in full except for the occasional unwanted laugh.

...

...I also thought that Michael Schumacher's family made a colossal mistake not to take him to that health facility...

 

This finally was available for rental starting yesterday, so I was eager to watch it.

I liked it; certainly a refreshing view.

It’s hard enough to not know a film’s reputation prior to seeing in theaters, so months later as a rental, I was unavoidably aware of the rave reviews of this film. It’s pretty difficult to find a bad review of this thing. I don’t think that made me expect more, though.

I don’t feel the film is quite up to the level of “best of the year/decade”, nor particularly for “Best Picture.” It’s one of those films that I can’t really say anything particularly bad about, but I don’t feel rises to the level of masterpiece. Luckily, and *gladly*, I don’t feel films have to reach that high bar. I thought the film was enjoyable, refreshing, and well made.

A few out there have tried to compare this to “Joker”, and I don’t think that does either film any favors. There are some obvious “class” issues touched on in both, but they are so different that joining the two at the hip in any way makes no sense to me.

I think “Parasite” works better when framed as an engaging film with intriguing performances, and some nice bits of suspense. I don’t think putting it in the “class struggle” context works quite as well. Make no mistake, I’m well aware that’s a main crux of the film. But to me, if that’s the angle, it’s really a case of class differences being highlighted, sort of laid out there to soak in, and not much else. I’m not saying a film has to be a call to arms, but just about every character in this film is morally reprehensible at one point or another to some degree. The take away as such could be construed as “all people can be awful.” I think the film highlights misanthropy more than class struggle. People do bad things that are either caused by being disenfranchised, or cause themselves to be disenfranchised or somehow inflicted with something.

The moral ambiguity of the film and of the characters, I should mention, works very well to make the film *very enjoyable.* But I think that ambiguity lessens its impact as some sort of polemic on class inequality.

I’m not sure how “realistic” the logistical aspects of the film are. I think the film does take some liberties there, requiring at least at least a bit of suspension of disbelief. So I don’t agree with some reviews I’ve read that contend this film is 100% stone cold realistic and this exact series of events could happen to anyone at any time. But this aspect of the film doesn’t bother me. It’s not outlandishly unrealistic. It’s fine.

 

I doubt I'm the first person who had this cross his/her mind, but it did today for me ... a nod to "Metropolis" in "Parasite".

 

I am a fan and enjoyed all of his movies so far that I've seen...

 

I saw it last week and I enjoyed it. Best film of the year? No, don't agree with that, but there are a lot of things that worked for me, and the unexpected turns in the third act (and the events of that birthday party) were effective. There were several things that didn't work for me:

Spoiler

I agree that the kid getting hit on the head with the giant rock TWICE and bleeding profusely but still living was a bit too much. Also the father crawling out from under the table and lying on the floor unnoticed when the light came on pushed plausibility

but I didn't have a problem with the family gaining access to the rich household so easily -- the idea was to show that they were cunning and manipulative and that the mom was out of touch. I did, however, find it hard to know who to root for in this story. Refreshingly, no one is either all good or all bad, but it might have been TOO balanced. Then again, that was arguably the director's point. I think it's so obviously well made and thoughtfully put together that everything was intentional, so I'm willing to meet him halfway on some of this stuff.

 

Now that you mention it, I definitely can think of some parallels between those movies.