“Parasite” (MA) ****

SOUTH Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho came away from the 2020 Oscars carrying the four most important Oscars of the lot – original screenplay, international film, director and picture.

His film “Parasite” also got the one technical category Oscar that made those four possible by gathering up a myriad little bits of film and metaphorically glueing them into the finished movie – it was a mighty editorial effort without which Bong’s quartet of trophies might have been distributed among other films.

Desperately funny, it’s more than merely a comedy. Filled with dishonesty, it does more than merely deliver appropriate comeuppances. Rising from a one-room apartment in a trash-choked Seoul alley, it’s more than merely a tale of a family that, through the father’s cunning, rises from poverty’s mire. It paints a picture of class distinction such as might in earlier times have led to revolution. Blood flows as freely from upper-class folk as from lower-class folk. 

I won’t even try to summarise the simple yet complex plot. I can do no more than express pleasure that such a US-centric bunch as the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences found the wit and wisdom to recognise that a bunch of Koreans could turn out such a delightful, entertaining and thought-provoking movie as this.

See it, even if you hate subtitled dialogue.

At Palace Electric, Dendy, Hoyts Belconnen and Limelight. 

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