Parasite
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
South Korea | 2019 | Fiction | 132 min
Korean w/ English subtitles
Film Source: Neon
Sponsors: Champlain College
*Parasite is one of three films selected by the Film and Media Culture Department at Middlebury College in partnership with VTIFF to screen in the Hirschfield International Film Series.
Winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Parasite is a black comedy thriller about a lower-class family of four who con their way into working at a rich couple’s mansion. As the grifters grow increasingly bold in their gambit, a wildly unexpected twist of fate threatens to derail the entire enterprise. Directed and cowritten by Bong Joon-ho (The Host; Snowpiercer), the film is simultaneously a superbly entertaining suspense yarn and a biting social commentary on wealth disparity and class discrimination in contemporary South Korea. Dazzlingly directed and effortlessly blending elements of the caper comedy and home invasion genres, Parasite is a masterpiece by a modern master. ~LB