Utterly bonkers at times but always brilliant something completely fresh for the first time in a long while. Loved every second couldn't take my eyes off the screen words can not justify just how great this film was other than films this good and this original really don't come around very often. Truly riveting and a true joy to watch.

Firstly, movie hype of the wildfire sort (ovation, talk of Cannes, etc) grossly overinflates expectations for a film. If you've read 50 reviews calling something 'best film ever' and then watch said film, I can almost guarantee you will not share their opinion afterwards. No, it's not a flawless masterpiece that will be remembered for centuries - but just because others think so is no reason to hate on it either, since it is undoubtedly an accomplished and entertaining piece of filmmaking.

Haters may hate for ideological reasons: something is definitely fishy with the skewed helpful/unhelpful ratio on most of these reviews (it's 1:5 to 1:10 for most reviews), which may or may not point to some sort campaign of orchestrated manipulation, or at the very least an outpouring of emotion. Clearly this has people roiled up!

Which is funny, because it's not really all that clear what there is to get roiled up about! Lots of reviewers talk about the underlying themes and motifs and whatnot, vaguely alluding to what those are - class struggle, a dash of political allegory - but no one so far has written up any sort of concrete analysis that decodes the film, pointing out the literary, cinematic, political, or psychological allusions in specific scenes. If you read enough of these reviews, you know there's always at least one arch-geek who takes on the challenge and posts something that borders on coherent and insightful. The North Korea references would be a great place to start, perhaps.

But yeah, I suspect this aggravated the sensibilities of some anti-anti-capitalist types, who rail against any lefty do-gooder subtext and want their films all storytelling and no agenda. (This is a silly expectation, since most storytelling throughout history is overtly agenda-driven.) Though it's definitely not a 'pro-capitalism' film, it is quite ambiguous about its morality, and there is no one to really root for or hate. This is actually one of its more subtle but grandiose achievements.

More to the point are criticisms of the acting, which may or may not be annoying (I don't speak Korean, so I cannot fully judge). Plot is on the improbable side, although the 'fun factor' of watching this unravel counterweighs the contrived nature of the initial setup. The final stretch doesn't quite deliver (if it did, this would be a 9-10), and there's an unnecessary and rather maudlin coda.

But overall, strong work, and definitely one of the year's must-see films.

In a meritocracy, success and fortune are reserved for those who deserve it--those who develop solid plans according to their talents and abilities and who execute those plans through hard work and determination. Anyone can rise to the top, and for some lucky Cinderella, plucked from the cinders and gussied up in gowns, the meritocracy represents the heights of perfect egalitarian society: "I started with nothing and ended up with everything I ever desired; you, too, can achieve you dreams, if only you try."

The promise of unobstructed sunshine at the top of the mountain becomes justification for bitter competition, backstabbing, deceit, and callousness. You climb the crooked ladder until you make it to the straight one, and then, perhaps, when you at last feel secure, you can afford to be kind and confident and generous. "It's easy to be nice when you're rich," the mother in this film (Jang Hye-jin) at one point observes.

But it's a very long and very crooked ladder, and sometimes the rungs give out beneath your grip, and sometimes they've been dangerously greased by those who climbed before you, and sometimes the ladder itself is simply kicked down--either by those above you or, just as often, by those staring up from the ground below. There are a lot of people trying to climb that one ladder.

But in a meritocracy, you can't blame the ladder or the other people trying to climb it. Nor can you blame the fact that all the good stuff is kept so many stories up instead of down at the ground where everyone can easily reach it. No, you must blame yourself. You should have tread more carefully. You should have climbed more quickly. You should have used a firmer and more precise grip, anticipated disasters, and known just when to leap. If you fail in a meritocracy, it's all your fault. You should have tried harder. Better luck next time.

Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik), the young man who is the main character of PARASITE, several times refers to "metaphors," and the film itself is, of course, a metaphor. On a surface level, viewers are treated to a very thrilling, engaging, well-paced and well-plotted crime story. At all times, however, bubbling up from beneath the slick surface of this genre film, there are deeply personal, meaningful truths that should resonate with almost any viewer. These insights are rarely foregrounded. They are so subtly interwoven, in fact, that if you're like me, you may be completely surprised when the final shots of the film roll and you realize that you are emotionally devastated by the intimate, humanist story you've just witnessed. Bong Joon-ho's filmmaking is so extraordinary here that he'll make you fully invested in the lives of his characters without you even realizing he's done so.

I want to avoid spoilers here, but suffice it to say that PARASITE is a masterpiece--beautifully lensed, enthrallingly edited, superbly acted, and intimately involving.

South Korea has a population that is one sixth the size of the United States, and that population is stacked into skyscrapers in an area slightly smaller than the state of Kentucky. Higher education is widespread, so parents with means try to make their children stand above the pack by hiring them tutors and signing them up for extracurriculars and afterschool programs. I lived in Korea once, and the children I taught there were sometimes engaged in learning ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week--public school, English-immersion private school, piano class, soccer team, taekwondo, math camp, chess club, and so on. I routinely worked sixty to seventy hours a week on salary, but at bars I would meet young men my age who were expected to work far more than that, who slept at their desks so that they did not need to pry themselves from work for too long. As the father (Song Kang-ho) in the film at one point says, this is a country where fifty young men with college degrees apply for a mere security guard job. One can't afford not to struggle.

The themes of this story are not just localized to Korea, however. They are the story of global capitalism, and the specter of American materialism (and imperialism; note the "Indians") looms heavily over the film. Meritocracy makes cannibals of us all. It's nice to dream, and sometimes the dreamers who plan and struggle well enough can indeed climb out of the basement and into the sunshine, and how nice an ending it is when they do. But the film also makes it clear that sometimes all that planning and dreaming may be, maybe, just whims and fancy. More often, it seems, our pipe dreams are content to leave us with nothing more than the whiff of spewed sewage.