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 and given both a repeat viewing, I want to discuss which I would have voted for.  Obviously this is only an exercise as the decision has long been made and 1917 has hardly been ignored by the awards circuit (it won three Oscars, Best Picture and six other awards at the BAFTAS along with scores of others).  Also there is some folly in the whole idea of awards as cinema is an art form and judging forms of art against each other is nonsensical in a way.  Also watching one film for the first time on a big screen , especially one with the scope of 1917, does give it an unfair advantage.  However the question has nibbled at me so I figured now is a good time to explore it.

Full spoilers for both films below (as well as 25th Hour).

Sam Mendes has always been an ambitious filmmaker.  American Beauty had some innovative images and seemed to start with the main character Lester speaking from the heavens.  Mendes and cinematographer Conrad Hall created some brilliant shots in Road to Perdition, especially a nighttime rainy scene with a tommy gun.  Spectre opened with a four-minute shot in which James Bond tracked an assassin through Mexico City's Day of the Dead parade.  For 1917 Mendes teamed with his frequent cinematographer Roger Deakins to tell the story of two soldiers in World War I in France who have to get an urgent message to a Colonel in another division in seemingly one shot.  This approach gives the viewers a full sense of the environment of the war both with enough time to take in the surroundings, since the film cannot quickly cut to the men in a another location, but also keeps us moving.

Deakins and Mendes guide us through several incredible sets created by production designer Dennis Gassner including: two different English trenches, a bombed town, No Man's Land, an abandoned German trench, a medical camp, damaged buildings, and a river which is like the River Styx, which Mendes also referenced in the titles for Skyfall.  The film is bookended with the main character, Scofield, leaning against a tree in a field.

Mendes wisely cast the leads with lesser-known actors, which makes their fate unknown to the audience in a way that it would not had stars played them.  For some background I think Stephen King is an excellent writer though for the most part supernatural horror does not hold my attention.  However I enjoy time travel stories so I read and savored King's book 11/22/63.  A year or so before seeing this I saw the miniseries it was based on and one character's story was changed I believe to give Jake Epping, the lead played by James Franco someone to talk to about his self imposed mission.  George MacKay played that character, Bill Turcotte and a haunted man with a sad expression.  Scofield's companion, Tom Blake, who we feel is going to the true lead of the film, is played by Dean-Charles Chapman.  Several other well-known British actors, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Richard Madden, and Benedict Cumberbatch appear as senior officers who, except for Strong, each appear in one scene.  Of these Cumberbatch is onscreen the least amount of time but made the strongest impression on me.
 

1917 is set in France where much of World War I was fought.  Scofield and Blake are assigned to deliver a message to Cumberbatch's Colonel MacKenzie to prevent him from leading his troops into a German ambush.  The events begin on April 6, 1917, which is the day the United States entered the war during the German operation Alberich, in which the Germans withdrew their troops to a more strategic position but fooled many of the British into thinking they were fleeing.  Though the story is fictionalized, like Saving Private Ryan the setting is authentic and based in part by Sam Mendes' grandfather's experiences as a messenger in the war.

I think the early sections of the film are the most intriguing.  Mendes shows us the vastness of both trenches by following the characters through them, and the differences as well (the German trench is more structurally sound).  Although we see no violence in No Man's Land, the barbed wire fencing and the dead animals suggest the damage that this war has taken on the country.

Blake's death is a surprise as we see the men observing a dogfight as audience members only to find themselves caught up in it.  Although it is easy to hate the German pilot who stabs Blake who is only trying to help him, the pilot may have done so in a panicked moment since he is completely at their mercy and has been taught to hate them.  If I had thought about it in a war story with two characters one of them is probably not going to live but it comes before the halfway point here.  Also, since Blake has a personal stake in the quest we have been paying a little more attention to him but after his long and painful passing it becomes Scofield's mission to complete the task for his lost friend.  The truth is a lot of these types of missions were sent with two soldiers in case one of them died.

Scofield and Blake' different statuses play a role in their survival as well.  Scofield is older and fought in the months long Battle of Somme the previous year and is tormented by the brutality of it but has developed better survival instincts.  Blake is a rookie who has been through training but probably has not seen combat before which explains his naiveté with the German pilot which leads to his death.  

MacKay shows Scofield processing Blake's death quietly in a slight state of shock and turns it into a sense of purpose.  But his reactions throughout are very human.  When he is in a truck that gets stuck in the mud he does not develop superhuman strength but rallies the other men to do so.  When battling with a sniper he finds the courage to go into the building where he is hiding but just barely survives when a bullet hits his helmet.  In the nearly destroyed town he runs away when people have the drop on him instead of standing his ground and fighting like an action hero might.

The sequence with the town seems a little surreal (I love the move when the camera seems to go out the window of the building he was hurt in and find Scofield in the road) with fiery images as if he is passing through Hell.  But even there Scofield finds some humanity when he comes across the young woman caring for the orphaned baby, which probably reminds him of his family back home.  After the film ended I wondered what had become of them and hoped they had survived.  

The river sequence allows for a rebirth of sorts and the men listening to a song feels like a lullaby.  I enjoyed the song Wayfaring Stranger and googled the history of it when I got home.  The final sequence of a stony trench when Scofield runs over the top into danger to reach MacKenzie, who does not exactly welcome the news, is the moment which had a strong impact big screen (and was the final shot of the trailer).  Composer Thomas Newman's score is powerful and Cumberbatch plays MacKenzie as cold, but not cruel,  who thoroughly planned an attack that he thought could end the conflict sooner suddenly having his hopes dashed.  The conclusion brings the story full circle when Scofield meets Blake's brother played by Richard Madden.  I had just seen Madden as the predatory John Reid in Rockman so it took a moment to adjust to his kind character here in which he goes to anticipation to unexpectedly seeing his brother to receiving devastating news, hold himself in check, and move on.  The only weakness is the single camera stays behind MacKay so we do not see his expression as the elder Blake gets the bad news.  Nonetheless the closing moments show Scofield reading a letter from his wife and we can see what he personally is fighting so hard to stay alive for, with the dawn of the new day.  

Parasite is about two families living in Seoul of two very different classes.  The Kim family is poor and live in a dirty apartment below the street and the wealthy Parks live in a luxury home in an upscale part of the city.  We see the story the Kim family's perspective, who are so low on the social scale that people literally urinate on their home.

The Kims are struggling to pay their bills and are fighting for low paying jobs when an opportunity arises for the son Ki-Woo to work as an English tutor for the Park's daughter.  Ki-Woo quickly notices that Mrs. Park is a little naive and the family gradually maneuvers themselves into other jobs in the Park household.  At this point I wanted to root for the Kim's to upgrade their lifestyle but Boon-ho refuses easy answers as the method in which they get the housekeeper and driver fired to replace them are ingenious but cruel.  In order for them to move up someone else has to go down.

Bong Joon-ho plays a lot of the first half of the film as a comic heist and there are a lot of quick edits as the Kims get into their roles.  At the midpoint the Parks go camping and the Kims allow themselves to get comfortable in the Park home.  There is a long scene in which the Kims get progressively drunk that tested my patience but they also are disillusioned into almost thinking this is their home.  I wondered where the film was going since obviously at some point the Parks had to become aware of the ruse but Bong Joon-ho moves the film goes in an unexpected direction.  When the old housekeeper, Moon-gwang returns it is revealed that she has been hiding her husband in a tunnel below the house from loan sharks.  The Park's son (Da-song) needs for an art therapist, which is filled by the Kims daughter Ki-jung is because the boy was traumatized from having seen the husband Geun-sae in the house and thought he was a ghost.  The Parks know he is troubled but cannot understand why.

This point made me think that if something is wrong with a house people often only reluctantly have it looked at because do we ever really want to see what is wrong?  It is easier to live above it but eventually it will creep up on you if you ignore it.  

This leads to the larger theme of the film presenting the upper class and the lower class literally.  The Parks live on top of a hill and the Kim's in an apartment below the city.  Geun-sae lives at the lowest status in an underground tunnel but he is at no risk of being discovered by the Parks because they never go down.  When the Kims have to leave the Park home they walk downhill for a long time to get home (after hiding under furniture while Mr. and Mrs. Park literally have sex above them).

The tone changes to more of a thriller for awhile when Moon-gwang figures out the Kim's scheme and threatens to expose them by holding them hostage with a cell phone video of them all in the house that feels simultaneously ridiculous and authentic.  Eventually the Kims fight back and the events that followed left me with the sad realization that both of these struggling families are working to keep the other down instead of trying to help each other overcome their tough lot in life.

When the Parks return due to the storm and the Kims are hiding among other things the Kims hear Mr. Park mention that Mr. Kim often comes close to crossing the line.  This sets up an interesting dynamic.  There is no question that Mr. Park considers himself above Mr. Kim even though Mr. Kim is older.  Mr. Park probably gives himself credit for employing Mr. Kim but at the same time although Mr. Park is unaware of it by installing themselves in the Park home at the first opportunity the Kims have definitely crossed the line.

The Kims return home to find it badly flooded and they are forced to go to a shelter.  Bong Joon-ho illuminates their dilemma.  While their behavior has been unforgiveable who would not do all they could to get out of such a situation?  It also sells the notion that their home is now literally a sewer, about as low as you could get.

The birthday party for Da-song brings together several of these ideas.  The Parks are trying to help their son by using their wealth but they have no idea what the true problem is.  The Kims are compelled to help with the party and especially Mr. Kim has to lose his dignity by wearing a humiliating costume.  The party, which seems harmless with the guests wearing bright clothes in the sunlight, explodes into gruesome violence that none of the guests could have imagined.  Mr. Kim freezes during these events until Mr. Park's reaction to Geun-sae's smell pushes him over the edge.

The message I take from this is if the upper class would engage more with the lower class and two sides were to listen to each other more these type of resentments which can lead to unnecessary death would exist a lot less.  Both parties in the film are greedy.  The Parks keep people like the Kims in their place, even though they behave humanely to them.  The Kims try to leech onto the Parks like parasites.  

Jong-ho uses the theme of scents as a divisor between the classes using only sight and sound yet it comes across quite clearly.  Here are some examples:

• Da-song mentions the Kims all smell alike.
• The fumigation in the beginning lessens the smell.  The Kims would rather breathe toxic air than smell their own apartment.  The larger message is that society is trying to poison its poor.
• Mr. Park describes Mr. Kim's smell but misidentifies the source because he lives far above it.
• The apartment must smell disgusting after being flooded with sewer water.
• Mrs. Park holds her nose while in the car with Mr. Kim, while her bare feet are on the head rest close to his face, which must be doubly insulting to him.  They are both emitting odors but she is relaxed while he is working and she can show her discomfort but he cannot.
• Ultimately Mr. Park's wrinkling of his nose at Geun-sae's smell while forcing Mr. Kim to throw him the car keys to take care of Da-song, while ignoring the fact that Ki-Jung has been stabbed, is the final straw for Mr. Kim.  While Mr. Park does not know that Ki-Jung is Mr. Kim's daughter his utter disregard for anything beyond Da-song is notable.  In a crisis he only cares for his own people.

At the end of the film both familes have lost a member to violence.  Mr. Kim has taken Geun-sae's place below the Park's old house, hiding from the police and keeping himself sane by using Morse code to communicate with his son.  Ki-woo and Chung-sook see it but are unable to reunite with him since the house has new owners.  Ki-woo writes a letter to his father but will probably never be able to deliver it.

While I feel the film is expertly constructed, I did notice a couple of flaws:

• The women are not as developed as the men.  Mrs. Park is well intentioned but is tricked repeatedly quite easily.  Chung-sook is by far the least developed as the Kims.  In the climax she is the one that fearlessly overcomes Geun-sae but in most of her scenes she is either putting someone down (often her husband) and rarely shows any redeemable qualities.
• It seems unbelievable that the Parks manage to organize an entire party on the fly before Da-song wakes up.  Someone sleeping outside would likely be woken up by the daylight.
• Ki-wook discusses marrying into the Park family since he has been romancing Da-hye all of them would have a better lifestyle.  If that very unlikely scenario were to occur, it would expose the truth about their family.
• We never see what Mrs. Park's reaction is to finding out that the Kims have tricked the family all along.
• I would like to know what happened to the rest of the Park family after the events of the party other than that they moved.
• The structure of the fantasy of Ki-woo working his way up society's ladder to then cut to a shot showing the much bleaker reality was used in the final moments of Spike Lee's film, 25th Hour.  

Both Parasite and 1917 are the result of clear visions by their directors and they start and end with similar images  (Parasite's is a view of the street from the Kim apartment then pans down to Ki-woo).  Parasite studies societal divisions in a different and, to me, far more successful method than Snowpiercer and 1917 tells a big story on a personal level.  I find them both to be terrific but enjoy 1917 more so it would get my vote.  Nonetheless I am happy that a foreign language film directed by a nonwhite person won Best Picture so Parasite's win is a step forward for society.

1917 *****

Parasite ****