A master class in film making. A ride
through all emotions, peak and valleys, funny at times and deeply
thoughtful at others. Each frame is visually interesting and showing
the continuing not so subtle class struggle theme. A quote I heard
recently "to each complex problem there are easy and wrong
answers", which seems to fit so much of this movie.
Joon-ho Bong has quietly become one of
the best international directors behind only Guillermo del Toro
'Pan's Labyrinth' (2006) and 'Devil's Backbone' (2001). If you don't
know either one of these directors, fire up Google, Netflix, Red Box,
cable movie channel, or make a trip to Wal-Mart. Joon-ho has written
and directed some fantastic movies, including 'The Host' (2006) and
'Snowpiercer' (2013) often with themes of working-class or poor
struggling.
Following a broke unemployed family who
has to hustle to survive. A bit of good fortune gets them in with a
rich family. Neither family is portrayed as good or evil nor smart or
dumb. Too often in depictions of class struggle, the poor are dumb and
the rich are evil. Here we see the Kim family quickly motivated to
help each other out with numerous ingenious schemes, with each
family member contributing in his own way. The Park family busy
dealing with their own issues, having a large household tends to lead
to many things coming up. Simple things can have very different meanings depending on where one lives.
While very sympathetic to the Kim
family, it slowly unravels an uncomfortable truth. True they are a
tight family who quickly helps each other. But, the person who
introduces them to the Park family is quickly betrayed. They are
ruthless in dispatching people in their way without a care. At one
point a neighbor needs help getting his loaded bicycle up the stairs,
they all rush past, not sparing ten seconds to help someone they
know. Each member is desperate to get a job so they can eat, at first.
That quickly gives way to taking advantage any way they can with
quickly looking down at the Park family for being naive. Within a
short time putting their new-found prosperity a risk. The father
Ki-taek who tries to be on his best behavior still is kind of rude,
disrespectful, lazy, has a body odor problem and is quick to point
the finger at someone else. To be fair the viewer sees how bad their
lives suck, the struggle is real!
The movie takes a rollercoaster series
of sharp dark turns. I love it when I can't tell where a movie is
going. It ends in a deeply depressing thud. A promise is made, that
is hopeful and quickly uplifting, but much like in 'Death of
Salesman' an empty promise without merit. That leaves nothing but
sorrow and sadness, that can't be fulfilled. All the dark turns and
mayhem but nothing compares to the stark realization for the
survivers.
