1917 vs Parasite
In early 2020, prior to the Academy Awards I saw director Sam Mendes' war film 1917 and was wholly impressed by it. 1917 was an utterly immersive look at the wartime experience and the single take approach (in actuality about 24 takes cleverly stitched together to appear as one) put the viewer in the shoes of the lead characters. I had not yet seen Parasite but had heard good things about it. In previous years I had seen Boon Joon-ho's films Mother and Snowpiercer (I do not know if his films always use single word titles in Korean, but they always seem to in English) and I had really liked Mother. I did not really connect with Snowpiercer however, since despite liking the concept as presented I felt the film was a little too outlandish and some of the performances were too big. There was some surprise when Parasite won Best Picture over 1917 and I admit that I was disappointed. A few days later I watched Parasite on a plane. Now having had time to think about both films