Tag: Parasite

  • Revenge of the marginalised

    Express News Service

    On the face of it there seems little in common between Bong Joon-ho’s much-celebrated Parasite (2019) and Houman Seyyedi’s World War III (2022), but the fairytale-like chance of a lifetime offered to Seyyedi’s protagonist, the homeless labourer Shakib (Mohsen Tanabandeh), to become a “somebody” from a “nobody” has uncanny parallels with the mind-boggling infiltration, appropriation and occupation of the wealthy Park home by the poor Kim family in the former.

    Some early scenes in it, of labourers waiting to be picked up in trucks to be ferried to the construction sites, reminded me of a similar working-class routine portrayed in M. Gani’s Hindi film Matto Ki Saikil (2022). This universality defines World War III.

    Like Parasite it invokes endemic inequities through architectural verticality. Like the semi-basements and bunkers in Korea, the dispossessed are confined under the earth, the Netherworld of sorts in the Iranian film. Both are marked by a gradual shift in tone—from a light-heartedness in Parasite and the fable-like feel in World War III, there’s a rushing headlong into a horrific climax that underlines a dystopic reality where, even in the face of promises of progress, the social divides between the haves and have-nots continue to remain entrenched, perennially depriving the latter of their rightful due. Social mobility is the stuff of dreams, not reality.

    Having lost his wife and son in an earthquake, Shakib has been in a steady relationship (a one-woman man as he calls himself) with a deaf and mute prostitute Ladan (Mahsa Hejazi) much to the disapproval of his friends. The turnaround in fortunes comes with a construction job on the set of a film about atrocities committed by Hitler during World War II. It makes Shakib and Ladan dream of a comfortable life together.

    But will they be able to seize it? The fact is that life for the poor and disenfranchised is a perennial Holocaust, of deceits, deceptions and betrayals. Their living conditions are like being in concentration camps. The poor of today don’t have to “get to know” the horrors of Nazism when they are living it.Seyyedi’s film uses the device of film-within-a-film to comment on society at large, especially deploying to great effect the comic-ironic element of the disempowered playacting the powerful oppressor. 

    It ties in with Seyyedi’s evocation of political theorist and historian Hannah Arendt in his Director’s Statement. “Arendt once said that in dictatorships, everything goes well, up until 15 minutes before the total collapse. Societies ruled by such totalitarian regimes are the most effective creators of anarchists,” he writes. His film is an illustration of precisely this tyranny and oppression, it is an urgent warning for the present and the future by harking back to the past.

    However, not just political, there are several flashpoints between the empowered and the marginalised—social, economic, aesthetic, and even cinematic—leading to their boundless rage, rebellion, revenge and bottomless tragedy. A director can be a dictator and a film set could be a site of physical labour pitted against intellectual, and artistic pursuits. There is hierarchy and powerplay in filmmaking as well.

    “Everyone is always bullying everyone else,” states an extra in the film. Shakib complains of no one listening to him, and that it’s easier to beat him up than lend him an ear. “I was a nobody. I am a nobody still,” he says, despite his starring role. But is it worth becoming somebody who is compromised and heartless? That forms the core moral debate of the film.

    World War III won the best film and best actor awards in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival 2022 and was the official submission of Iran for the Best International Film Oscar this year. It plays on March 26 at the Capital’s India Habitat Centre as part of the Habitat International Film Festival. Well worth a watch.

    On the face of it there seems little in common between Bong Joon-ho’s much-celebrated Parasite (2019) and Houman Seyyedi’s World War III (2022), but the fairytale-like chance of a lifetime offered to Seyyedi’s protagonist, the homeless labourer Shakib (Mohsen Tanabandeh), to become a “somebody” from a “nobody” has uncanny parallels with the mind-boggling infiltration, appropriation and occupation of the wealthy Park home by the poor Kim family in the former.

    Some early scenes in it, of labourers waiting to be picked up in trucks to be ferried to the construction sites, reminded me of a similar working-class routine portrayed in M. Gani’s Hindi film Matto Ki Saikil (2022). This universality defines World War III.

    Like Parasite it invokes endemic inequities through architectural verticality. Like the semi-basements and bunkers in Korea, the dispossessed are confined under the earth, the Netherworld of sorts in the Iranian film. Both are marked by a gradual shift in tone—from a light-heartedness in Parasite and the fable-like feel in World War III, there’s a rushing headlong into a horrific climax that underlines a dystopic reality where, even in the face of promises of progress, the social divides between the haves and have-nots continue to remain entrenched, perennially depriving the latter of their rightful due. Social mobility is the stuff of dreams, not reality.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

    Having lost his wife and son in an earthquake, Shakib has been in a steady relationship (a one-woman man as he calls himself) with a deaf and mute prostitute Ladan (Mahsa Hejazi) much to the disapproval of his friends. The turnaround in fortunes comes with a construction job on the set of a film about atrocities committed by Hitler during World War II. It makes Shakib and Ladan dream of a comfortable life together.

    But will they be able to seize it? The fact is that life for the poor and disenfranchised is a perennial Holocaust, of deceits, deceptions and betrayals. Their living conditions are like being in concentration camps. The poor of today don’t have to “get to know” the horrors of Nazism when they are living it.
    Seyyedi’s film uses the device of film-within-a-film to comment on society at large, especially deploying to great effect the comic-ironic element of the disempowered playacting the powerful oppressor. 

    It ties in with Seyyedi’s evocation of political theorist and historian Hannah Arendt in his Director’s Statement. “Arendt once said that in dictatorships, everything goes well, up until 15 minutes before the total collapse. Societies ruled by such totalitarian regimes are the most effective creators of anarchists,” he writes. His film is an illustration of precisely this tyranny and oppression, it is an urgent warning for the present and the future by harking back to the past.

    However, not just political, there are several flashpoints between the empowered and the marginalised—social, economic, aesthetic, and even cinematic—leading to their boundless rage, rebellion, revenge and bottomless tragedy. A director can be a dictator and a film set could be a site of physical labour pitted against intellectual, and artistic pursuits. There is hierarchy and powerplay in filmmaking as well.

    “Everyone is always bullying everyone else,” states an extra in the film. Shakib complains of no one listening to him, and that it’s easier to beat him up than lend him an ear. “I was a nobody. I am a nobody still,” he says, despite his starring role. But is it worth becoming somebody who is compromised and heartless? That forms the core moral debate of the film.

    World War III won the best film and best actor awards in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival 2022 and was the official submission of Iran for the Best International Film Oscar this year. It plays on March 26 at the Capital’s India Habitat Centre as part of the Habitat International Film Festival. Well worth a watch.

  • Bong Joon-ho to team up with Robert Pattinson on sci-fi film

    By Express News Service

    Robert Pattinson may work with Parasite director Bong Joon-ho on his next film according to reports. The director is set to work on a sci-fi film that is to be produced by Warner Bros. It is also reported that Bong Joon-ho will write the as yet untitled project.

    Further, it is also speculated that the film will be based on an upcoming novel by Edward Ashton titled Mickey7. It is being hyped as Andy Wier’s The Martian meets Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter as it is about a man on an expedition to colonise Niflheim, which is an ice world.

    The book is expected to be published in the first quarter of the year by St. Martin, an imprint of Macmillan. Bong will produce via Offscreen with Dooho Choi for Kate Street Picture Company and Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner for Plan B, which produced his Netflix film, Okja. Peter Dodd will oversee the studio.

    Meanwhile, Pattinson will next be seen in DC’s The Batman, also produced by Warner Bros and directed by Matt Reeves. He will play the titular role in the film that is scheduled to be out on March 4. 

  • Parasite actress Park So Dam diagnosed with thyroid cancer undergoes surgery

    By Online Desk

    Park So Dam is recovering from surgery after she was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer.

    The Parasite actress, 30, was diagnosed during a recent health check, which halted plans to promote her new movie Special Delivery, as she underwent surgery, Park’s ArtistCompany told CNN in a statement on Monday.

    The rep said that Park was “very disappointed” to miss out on the press tour, adding: “The company would like to once again thank all the people for showing support for Special Delivery and actress Park So Dam, as well as the actors and crew of Special Delivery overcoming this difficult time together,” the agency said in the statement.

    “Actor Park So Dam will focus on her recovery so that she can see you all healthy in the future, and ArtistCompany will also do our best to help the actor recover her health,” they added.

    Papillary thyroid cancer is the most common type of cancer to affect the thyroid, according to the Mayo Clinic. “Several types of thyroid cancer exist. Some grow very slowly and others can be very aggressive. Most cases of thyroid cancer can be cured with treatment,” they note.

    “Thyroid cancer rates seem to be increasing. Some doctors think this is because new technology is allowing them to find small thyroid cancers that may not have been found in the past.”

    Park has appeared in a number of South Korean titles, including Steel Cold Winter, The Priests and Ode to the Goose.

    She gained an international following after her breakout role in 2019’s Parasite, which swept the Academy Awards with four wins, including the Bong Joon Ho-helmed film’s historic accomplishment as the first to win both Best Picture and Best International Feature Film.

  • Bong Joon Ho’s HBO ‘Parasite’ series an original story set in film’s universe

    By PTI
    LOS ANGELES: Filmmaker Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” series at HBO will be an original story set in the Oscar-winning film’s universe and not a remake.

    Bong had teamed up with producer-writer Adam McKay and HBO for a TV adaptation of the film just before its historic triumph at the Academy Awards where it became the first South Korean film to win the Best Picture Oscar, reported Collider.

    McKay, who is best known for HBO’s Emmy-winning show “Succession,” recently appeared on MTV’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast to confirm that the work on the series was in full speed.

    “We’re just having the best time. We’ve just staffed up with an incredible writers’ room. I basically outlined the series with director Bong during the quarantine, with him overseeing,” McKay said.

    The producer said that the HBO series will not be a remake of Bong’s dark thriller on the class-divide in South Korea.

    “It’s an original series. It’s in the same universe as the feature, but it’s an original story that lives in that same world.” McKay said he was honoured to be anywhere near the orbit of the director, known for international classics like “Memories of Murder”, “Mother” and “Okja” to name a few.

    “Occasionally in life, you get very lucky, and for me to get to work anywhere near director Bong’s orbit ” usually, when I hear people say ‘I’m honored,’ it sounds like bull**** to me, but I’m legitimately honored.

    And having a blast.”