With “Parasite” poised to become 2019’s highest-grossing foreign film within the US and already among the year’s most lauded features, Be Reel is taking this week for an episode entirely focused on Bong Joon-ho and his two decades of routinely stellar work.
In addition to “Parasite,” longtime listeners might notice we’re also breaking one of our cardinal Be Reel rules: we once swore to never discuss “Snowpiercer” on the podcast because of the unrest it caused our friendship upon its initial release in 2013. Then, “The Host” rounds out today’s main trio of genre pictures that are not anything like they seem.
Seven films in, Bong (or “Director Bong” as his colleagues fondly call him) shines in numerous areas—elegant set design, kinetic storytelling, balletic choreography—but his topical interests remain strikingly similar over the course of his career. All three of these films, for example, are fascinated with the limits of a capitalist class structure. It’s the poor versus the powerful as the rules of society come apart at the seams.
Amid such duress, these stories are also terribly interested in familial structures—and to what tribe one subscribes. When do those allegiances hold you together? (Like if you’re stuck under a coffee table or in the caboose of a doomsday train.) When do they betray you? (Like if you’re stuck in a fish monster graveyard and have only your detained dad’s phone number.)
READ MORE: Bong Joon-Ho Won’t Direct A Superhero Film Because Of His Fear Of Snug Clothing
Ultimately, Bong is a master storyteller with a flair for the disturbing, or the “icky” as you’ll hear Noah call it. The 50-year-old auteur isn’t shy about zooming in on visuals and concepts that could make contemporary viewers uncomfortable, but that also makes him one of the most compelling directors currently working.
Listen below, and feel free to reach out on Twitter or Instagram if you have your own answers to today’s big questions. Questions like:
- Wait, is “Memories of Murder“ actually the best Bong movie?
- What makes four-time collaborator Song Kang-ho such a fitting star for Bong?
- Why do the director’s observations on Korean culture seem to resonate so strongly with American cinephiles?
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