{"id":2420,"date":"2020-02-07T22:45:16","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T22:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2420"},"modified":"2020-11-06T16:24:39","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T16:24:39","slug":"oscars-2020-parasite-and-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/02\/07\/oscars-2020-parasite-and-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscars 2020: Parasite and predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Parasite<\/em> was my final film of this year\u2019s crop of Best Picture nominees, and it came with quite the hoopla. People better-versed than me in South Korean cinema tell me that in comparison this seems very very good as opposed to exceptional, but my only previous exposure to Bong Joon Ho had been his very Hollywood (and totally demented) Snowpiercer<\/em>, so I sat down with high if rather vague expectations.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d also tried to keep myself spoiler-free, so I didn\u2019t even know the premise of the film, and in many ways it was the early scenes which I found most engaging. The apparently feckless Kim family, living in a squalid sub-basement, always on the scrounge or on the make \u2013 but furious at the bad behaviour of others \u2013 turn out to have a more entrepreneurial side. Following an introduction from his cousin, the son becomes English tutor to the daughter of the very wealthy Park family, whose bonkers house resembles that in Mon Oncle<\/em> (although they don\u2019t quickly turn on the fountain whenever there are visitors).<\/p>\n

Ki-woo passes his sister Ki-jeong off as an art teacher for the other child and pretty soon, Kim p\u00e8re<\/em> and Kim m\u00e8re<\/em> have replaced the incumbent chauffeur and housekeeper. When the Parks go away for the weekend, the Kims revel in their borrowed luxury. But hiding in the basement is a terrible secret, and it\u2019s this plot left turn which gave me a moment\u2019s pause, because although there is thematic unity here (height equals wealth and status; depth equals degradation and poverty) nothing to this point has been quite so outr\u00e9<\/em> as the previous housekeeper hiding her unemployed husband in a secret basement for the past four years.<\/p>\n

Once I swallowed that, I was on board all the way to the end. There\u2019s one plot contrivance in the climax which I felt was a little too constructed to really resonate, but for the most part this sings. The story is expertly assembled, Bong shoots it with the eye of a master and the acting is absolutely superb throughout. I was particularly struck by the Kim family matriarch (Chang Hyae-jin) and son (Choi Woo-shik) both of whom manage to transform themselves in a way which is utterly convincing for the Park family and yet the deception is perfectly clear to the audience.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s loads going on here about capitalism, climate change, wealth inequality and the nature of trust and deceit. The point of the title (for me at any rate) is that both families are parasites. The Kims leech off the Parks\u2019 good natures and the Parks can\u2019t survive without the seemingly servile Kims. I can\u2019t help thinking that I would have appreciated this parable even more if it had avoided the shift into the grand guinol<\/em> but I can\u2019t deny that I was completely enthralled for every minute it was on.<\/p>\n

So, despite the fact that my track record is pretty pisspoor, if you\u2019ll indulge me, I will embarrass myself once again with some predictions. Best Picture will go to 1917<\/em> and Sam Mendes will also take Best Director. As luck would have it, I also think this is the most deserving film of the year, with shoutouts to Little Women<\/em> and Parasite<\/em>, coming in a close second and third. While it\u2019s just possible that Bong will pinch Best Director, no foreign language film has ever won Best Picture and if Roma<\/em> can\u2019t do it than I don\u2019t see Parasite<\/em> succeeding. 1917<\/em> seems to have all the momentum anyway.<\/p>\n

I did not like Joker<\/em> at all, but Joaquin Phoenix\u2019s performance is exactly the kind of showboating so often rewarded by the Academy, and provided it doesn\u2019t win either Picture or Director, I\u2019ll allow it. Of those nominees, I\u2019d probably give it to Adam Driver, but it\u2019s a crime George McKay isn\u2019t nominated. Best Actress can only go to Ren\u00e9e Zellweger who has no doubt been working on her speech since June.<\/p>\n

Best Supporting Actor likewise has Brad Pitt pretty much nailed on, and fair enough I suppose. Best Supporting Actor is tougher to call. I\u2019d love to see Scarlett Johansson lift the statuette on Sunday but Laura Dern seems to be a lock. Best Original Screenplay should go to Rian Johnson for his delightful and inventive Knives Out<\/em>, but I suspect Tarantino will nick it. Best Adapted Screenplay must surely go to Greta Gerwig for her magnificent Little Women<\/em> script or there\u2019s no justice whatever in the world.<\/p>\n

See you in a few days for a detailed explanation of how and why I got it all so wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parasite was my final film of this year\u2019s crop of Best Picture nominees, and it came with quite the hoopla. People better-versed than me in South Korean cinema tell me that in comparison this seems very very good as opposed to exceptional, but my only previous exposure to Bong Joon Ho had been his very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,11],"tags":[523,19],"class_list":["post-2420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-the-cinema","category-culture","tag-oscars-2020","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-D2","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2420"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2523,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2420\/revisions\/2523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}