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Monday, February 10, 2020

Parasites

"Workers of the world, unite!"

Ironic to see Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto quoted by rich elitist celebrities who wouldn't be seated anywhere near the second-class bourgeoisie passengers let alone among the proletariats in steerage. No, they'd instead be in the stateroom enjoying the luxurious lifestyle of the 1%. And this is just the tip of the iceberg in the ridiculous progressive activism on display at the Oscars last night.

That said, it's interesting to see the Korean film Parasite receive four (of six) wins - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. The film's writer-director-producer Bong Joon-Ho won all of them. Furthermore it's the first foreign film to win Best Picture. And Parasite is the third film to concurrently win the Oscar for Best Picture and the Palme d'Or (Best Picture at the Cannes film festival). The other two were 1945's The Lost Weekend and 1955's Marty. All in all, quite an accomplishment for S. Korean cinema.

Prior to this, I think the best Asian cinema had done was nearly two decades ago when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won four (out of ten) Oscars (Best Foreign Film, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography).

Today there are plenty of other critically acclaimed Asian movies and shows. Take for instance The Farewell as another recent critically acclaimed film. There are lauded tv sitcoms like Fresh Off the Boat and Kim's Convenience too. I'm sure we could multiply examples.

There are many reasons for the ascendancy of Asian cinema in recent years. However I just want to note it looks to me most the best aspects of Asian cinema have arisen in democratic Asian nations like Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and S. Korea. It's not often one sees (say) communist China produce high quality films. Especially before it embraced a capitalist market economy, albeit state-controlled. Probably Zhang Yimou is one of the few standouts in mainland Chinese film, but even his films have been censored by the Chinese government.

Yet we have moralizing Western elites lecturing average people about the horrors of Trump and conservatives, and the greatness of progressivism and socialism, while they're likewise benefiting from the fruits of a nation where film and the arts have the ground soil in which to flourish. In other words, the same moralizing celebrities wouldn't likely enjoy the life they currently enjoy if they had worked in show business in Cuba, N. Korea, or communist China. Who are the real "parasites" again?

Too bad these progressive Hollywood celebrities didn't take to heart Ricky Gervais' monologue at the Golden Globes last month:

So if you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg. So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God, and [bugger] off, okay?

Update: I finally watched the movie Parasite. I review the film here.

11 comments:

  1. Are you insinuating that Revolutionary operas don't represent the pinnacle of theatrical Asian art?

    https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2013/04/24/178900162/explore-madame-maos-hollywood-fantasies

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    1. I guess I have to admit I was quite moved by the aria "We join arms to hew in half the dragon throne and raise up a humble seat for the people one billion times more glorious than scholar-emperors and feudal pigs enjoy!" in The Search for Chairman Mao's Perfect Chair, and I have a kind of grudging admiration for the libretto beginning with "Comrades! We must liberate Louis Vuitton and Gucci from the white imperial demons in our midst / For Madame Mao needs a new pair of shoes and other cute accessories / So she can walk alongside us to encourage our labors in the harvest fields!" in Crouching Tigress, Hidden Aristocrat, but I'm afraid it all went downhill from there!

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  2. One of my all time favourites is raise the red lantern. Interestingly, some people thought it was an allegory on modern China. The landlord represents the state. All controlling but never seen.

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    1. Thanks, Andrew! I can't remember Raise the Red Lantern, which, if I saw, I think I must've seen as a kid. I think my favorite movie of his is To Live, which I've seen, but which I should re-watch since I don't remember as much as I'd like. Anyway I think To Live was also indirectly critical of the Chinese government, at least Mao's Cultural Revolution, and that might've earned it censorship in China.

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  3. By the way, I haven't seen the movie Parasite. Nor do I really care to. Especially not after reading these reviews:

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/movie-review-parasite-laughs-at-family-and-social-ruin/

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/parasite-anti-americanism-returns-to-the-oscars/

    Tldr. Apparently the S. Korean director kowtows to progressive elites in Hollywood.

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  4. I occasionally listen to a movie podcast where the hosts are liberal, but not going out of their way to make every analysis fit into a leftist narrative. They covered this movie a few weeks ago, before I had seen it, and as I was listening to them give their leftist interpretation of the movie it didn't seem to fit with their own synopsis of the movie's plot. The way they described the plot of the movie, it sounded conservative.

    Out of curiosity I watched the movie last night and I think it confirmed my impression from hearing it described. I don't understand why everyone, left and right, seems to think the movie is communicating a leftist message.

    The poor family is clearly immoral and unjustified in their actions. They really are depicted as parasites. The worst that can be said of the rich family is that they are naive. (I'm tempted to say that another fault of the rich family is supposed to be their ignorance to the conditions of the poor... but that's really the fault of the poor family who lies to them.) That's not to say that depicting poor people as parasites is conservative. Rather, the entire moral of the story, for the poor family, is don't lust after wealth (symbolized in the rock) or the destructive power of envy.

    I don't see how anyone could watch the movie and not see an illustration of 1 Timothy 6:10.

    It's possible that some things were lost in translation for me, but those whom I've heard giving their own leftist take on the movie are no more in a position to translate subtle South Korean cultural cues than I am.

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    1. Thanks for the comment, John! That's informative. Good to know. Perhaps I'll have to watch the film after all. :)

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  5. On the subject of Asian cinema, I think a lot of Chinese films are popular because they are so epic in scale. Ie Crouching tiger, hidden Dragon and Hero. Obviously, extras are going to be so much more affordable In China than the US.

    The Chinese have even tried their hands at big science fiction blockbusters ie the wandering Earth. It wasn't very good.

    Something that intrigues me is why are Japanese horror movies so disturbing. It often involves children and water. The water I'm told is because Japan is basically a collection of Islands.

    The Korean revenge flick old boy is brilliant. Something so disturbing that you wouldn't see in a western movie.

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    1. Thanks, Andrew! I didn't know that's why Japanese horror often involves water. It makes sense if it's true.

      I watched the American version of Old Boy which was disturbing enough (at least ot me anyway), so I can't imagine how much more the Korean version would be!

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    2. --Something that intrigues me is why are Japanese horror movies so disturbing. It often involves children and water. The water I'm told is because Japan is basically a collection of Islands.--

      Hmm, then I wonder what explains Koreans and their fear of fans? :)
      https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/05/is-this-going-to-kill-me-fan-death-korea/528243/

      I'm also not sure Chinese films are popular because of their epic scale. To not get too deep into socio-economic analysis I would simply say that I think their economy and their culture is just at the point where they can experiment with special effects and elaborate sets and, at the same time, a large enough segment of the population can also now afford to spend money on movies. In my opinion, most of these movies are very low quality--of course we might say the same for American cinema. But what passes for a plot or a touching scene in some highly praised Chinese movies is sometimes infantile (The Wandering Earth in particular comes to mind). I think that because China's economy and entertainment industry is coming of age in a time when CGI is so pervasive, a lot of their films call to mind something Frederick Copleston said discussing Aristotle on plays: "The spectacle is indeed an attraction; but it is 'the least of all the parts, and has least to do with the art of poetry'" (Hist. of Phil., vol 1, p. 365). Although in this context I would replace the word "poetry" with "film." I don't think some of the older Chinese films (that I've seen) suffer from this.

      But while we are recommending disturbing asian films, here are two more Korean films worth checking out:

      Secret Sunshine (will confront you with the problem of evil)
      Oasis

      I didn't like Old Boy as I think it was too dark. My recollection is that it's one of those movies which relies upon its shock value or showing the audience disturbing things to elicit strong emotions from the audience and then people think it's a good film because it elicited strong emotions in them. But I don't think that's what makes a good film. Maybe some would say the same thing of Secret Sunshine and Oasis, but I think these are not only less extreme but also have more substance to them.

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    3. Thanks for the tip John.

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