SEOUL : The South Korean director of “Parasite”, the darkly comic movie that won the top Palme d’Or prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, described his film on Tuesday as “a candid portrayal of the rich and the poor.”
“Parasite” is a wickedly humourous suspense movie about class struggles set in modern South Korea, following a down-on-its-luck family of four who worm their way into jobs in a wealthy household.
The unanimous decision to award “Parasite” the top prize at Cannes on Saturday partly came down to its unexpected mash-up of genres, as the darkly comic tale doubles up as a thriller, with flashes of violence.
Bong said he conceived and began writing “Parasite” in 2013, when he was filming the critically-acclaimed movie “Snowpiercer” starring Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton.
Both movies portray the rich and the poor, but instead of the science fiction setting of a train in “Snowpiercer”, Bong said he focused “Parasite” on two families – one poor, one rich – to show the wealth gap through “the most basic unit of our lives.”
“We all have families, but they’re all different,” he said.
