The parasite is a 2019 South Korean black comedy thriller film, directed by Bong Joon-ho. Among its numerous accolades, Parasite won leading four awards at the 92nd Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film, becoming the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film tells the story of a family of four who are all unemployed father MR. Kim is idle all day long, until the positive eldest son Kim Ki-woo with a forged diploma goes to rich president Park’s home to apply for the tutor, two very different families are involved in a series of accidents in the story.
The basics of the plot. I think the biggest reason why this film won the award is that it depicts the social class problem in Korea. The patriarchal culture and the gap between the rich and the poor are obvious problems. The parasite is an upstairs/downstairs or “stairway movie”, in which staircases are used as a motif to represent the positions of the families in the homes of the Kims and the Parks, as well as the basement bunker. The semi-basement apartment that the Kims live in is common for poorer Seoul residents due to its lower rent, despite having issues such as mold and increased risk of disease.
The second reason is that the background is important. Critics have also considered the themes of colonialism and imperialism. According to Ju-Hyun Park, the film plays out within “the capitalist economic order inaugurated and upheld in Korea by colonial occupation”, and the use of the English language in the film denotes prestige within that economic system. I think if they change the background of the film, the effect of the film wouldn’t have worked as well
The third reason is the crew worked so hard. For example, The Parks’ house was a specially constructed set. The ground floor and the garden were constructed on an empty outdoor lot, while the basement and first floor were constructed on set. “We built the main floor of the house in a backlot and for the second floor it was all green screen outside”, explained editor Yang Jin-mo. “When we shot toward the outside from inside, everything beyond the garden was all VFX
So, I think there are three reasons: social problems, background, and working hard. I think the directors are trying to give the audience a sense of the true world. I think the truth is important however for film or journalism. Because just the truth can let people touch and trust us.
Journalism 2.0 