SPOILERS MAY OCCUR!

source: Imdb.com

Hi Cinephiles,

this my first post and I would like to start out with a dive into Korean cinema.I will commence the journey with an essay about Bong Joon-Ho – arguably the (at least in the western hemisphere) best known Korean director of our time and will try to sum up a few of his reoccurring themes.(I will focus on his most significant works made in his home country before Parasite.)

The Conditioned Human

To me his are the works of a filmmaker who is able to display the full spectrum of the human condition struggling with the cards you are dealt and doesn’t have to shy away from such greats as Bergman and Tarkovsky… he is just less depressing. but I will get back to that…If you just go by outer themes, all his features are more or less crime stories, while half of them are wrapped in a genre film format. While unfolding, it becomes clear though, that this is just a simple hook for creating tension among different caste members of society, so they can bounce off each other.

source: Imdb.com

The Class Society

In his films there is always the notion of looking up to the upper class, wanting to belong to it or at least profit from it, while also punching up. The theme of it travels through all of his work reaching it’s pinnacle is Parasite… but since it’s more or less the main theme there and obviously having received the most attention anyways, I don’t thinks it needs to be elaborated on any further.. I find it more compelling to talk about his previous work, where you find it to be more of an underlying theme and the mannerisms of the different classes collide more in everyday situations.Starting it off with the hit and run car chase of the professors, to the golf course in Mother. Without knowing their destination, they assume that the destination of a Mercedes Benz can only be the rich people’s hang out spot #1, the golf course… and they are right. In the aftermath, when everybody is gathered at the precinct, one of the entitled rich men stands up and points to his colleague, “this man is too important to be here” .. only foreshadowing how the legal system and bureaucracy is always on the side of the entitled ones.

Getting literally kicked into the bushes by his new colleague in Memories of Murder on their first encounter, is probably the most graphic display of the different origin of the two police men. The newbie from Seoul being despised by the townie officer for being big city boy, asking why he would even come here to some godforsaken town like this, further insulting him for a being a brainy geek during a drunken bar night. Together with the third cop, they make somewhat of a tragic triplet constellation, the smart, the bad and the brute or whatever analogy you want to pick. Being pretty much nothing BUT the muscle, who takes care of the dirty police work (torturing the suspects), becomes evident during a conversation while mindlessly waiting around during a field search. He heard about college orientation days, where orgies are held, speaking of it like a myth from a distant unreachable world, in which he reasons, easy sex is the only thing, making college something worthwhile.. which brings us to the big social gap defined by class –

Education

What goes hand in hand with class is the highly priced and therefore exclusive education system. But even the privileged who enjoyed higher education cant escape the dog eat dog world.The Intellectual in “Barking Dogs Don’t Bite”, who cant’t get a position as a professor or the protagonist’s brother In “The Host” who is the only one who has an academic degree in the family and still can’t get a job. The latter envies his friend who has a regular office job, wondering ” I am sure you make 60-70.000 per year” … while the friend only sighingly replies “yeah 70K in credit card debt” … making it all too clear what a gagging adhesion contract modern life really is.So Bong shows us, no matter what class you are in, the fat years are over and everyone is living in their own little vice.

source: Imdb.com

The Highest Class

Government and the bureaucratic apparatus are either displayed just a big mess, disguising their own missdoings or as an untouchable entity, often using brute force, … but mostly both.They avoid getting involved or avoid contact, like the lawyer in Mother. Never giving out too much information to the citizens or only if they need to inform them about spreading “Agent Yellow”(sic!) in The Host. The tongue-in-cheeck message is always that they don’t really know what they are doing most of the time themself. Be it from the infamous long take in Memories of Murder where it is mayhem on the crime scene and they lose evidence due to a passing of a tractor; or the slapstick scene in The Host, where one of the men in a hazmat suit just slips and hopes nobody saw it. But evidently the crudest representation of being inept comes later in the film when Song Kang Ho’s character gets tissue removed without having received an anesthetic and therefore screaming in agony: “Why is he causing such a scene?” This is only topped by the crossed eyed scientist, asking why he didn’t alarm the authorities about the whereabouts of his missing daughter, he answers in tears ” because nobody fucking listens to me, dammit!” Holding his head in a fatherly gesture, we are finally hoping to experience some sort of catharsis through the expected remorse on the side of authority. But here comes Bong with his nuanced tragic comedy.

Remember the classic saying how comedy is tragedy plus time? In the of case of Bong’s movies, it is tragedy plus very little time or even no time, meaning pretty much instantly… Pouring his heart out is interpreted as “now he is obviously completely delusional”, and while admitting there actually is no virus, we smash-cut to Song’s head being in a vice getting brain surgery. Another beautiful example of this kind of particular comedic style, is the situation during the first appearance of the monster in The Host, where Song’s character grabs some girls arm instead of his own daughter’s during the frenzy. A troubling scene, emphasized vividly in slow motion. What would easily work as a quick gag in a comedy movie, is directly followed by the abduction of his daughter by the monster.

source: Imdb.com

…and then there is the retards

Please be aware that I use the derogative term here on purpose, however handicapped a character is, or is perceived as such, he/she gets belittled, slapped around or just treated as a third class citizen in Bong’s movies. The spectrum however goes from a severely mentally challenged individual, who still sleeps in his mothers bed as an adult, kills somebody and just forgets about it, to Song Kang-ho’s character in the Host, who, according to his father, just not gotten enough protein as a kid and therefore is a “little slow” … However, the point is, they all take their significant part in the plot, are the (sometimes hidden) protagonist or even save the day. Not only do they take an integral role in the story that makes it function in its very own way,often they also give the viewer an insight on how the absurdities of life can perceived differently. In my view the mentally challenged could be seen as a placeholder not only for the underprivileged, but also to showcase the whole spectrum of the human condition for the absurdities of life that often go unseen or better ignored by the “sane” people. These characters are often placed in situations to showcase a moral border of whats ok and whats not.. or better put, where the laughter gets stuck in your throat…

source: Imdb.com