Just watched Parasite

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
04/10/2020 at 23:58 • Filed to: None

God damn, this is a good movie. F**king brilliant. No way was Joker even close to the quality of this film.

DISCUSSION (23)

VincentMalamute-Kim > ttyymmnn
04/11/2020 at 00:19

You can deal with subtitles? You can read English ?

/s (unlike a certain orange moron)

Initially I wasn’t too interested from reading the plot description. I thought I needed guns, lasers, sci-fi for me to watch. I was surprised at how good it was. Makes me want to watch more Korean movies. Oldboy is good.

I like how these movies are subtly different from Hollywood’s output which all seem the same. Obviously, I’m not talking about the Asian actors and language.

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn
04/11/2020 at 00:20

We watched it a few weeks ago. Your assessment is correct, although I still haven’t seen the Joker, so I have no opinion there.

ttyymmnn > TheRealBicycleBuck
04/11/2020 at 00:29

My high schooler was obsessed with Joker. He saw it in the theater, and then we rented it at home. After watching Parasite, he said, “No way was Joker as good as this.” Which is not to say Joker was bad, it just wasn’t anywhere near as complex. It’s emotion was raw but often contrived, and it was weighty for the sake of being heavy. W hereas the emotion of Parasite was absolutely true and human. From where it starts to where it ends is one hell of a journey.

ttyymmnn > VincentMalamute-Kim
04/11/2020 at 00:32

Subtitles didn’t bother me at all. I enjoyed hearing the Korean, and noticing the subtleties of the language compared to the translation. If anything, the subtitles made me pay closer attention to the film, and that was a good thing.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > ttyymmnn
04/11/2020 at 01:20

I saw it in the theater back in February, after a nice Korean meal; I was going for tacos, but the restaurant’s CC machine wasn’t working so I went to another place near the theater (or what I thought was the theater - same street, but three miles further east - oops) . Some of the other posters mention the subtitles, and to be honest, I forgot that this film had subtitles, not that I speak Korean.

Having studied film and television production in college, I actually have a hard time watching movies unless I have an understanding of the story ( Apollo 13 , Rush , etc.) Usually I can see all of the plot points and developments and can figure out how the film is going to progress in the first five minutes, and then spend the rest of my time bored, checking my watch, waiting for the inevitable . This one? It t hrew me for a loop. Of course, y ou knew that something was going to happen, but you had no idea where it was going or how it was going to finish. In addition, having quite an interest in architecture (what I should have studied in college...) I was blown away by the sets. Part of me wants to build a real-life version of that house because it seems to match a lot of what I consider to beautiful in a home.

ttyymmnn > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
04/11/2020 at 01:38

Any good film gets you talking afterward, and my wife and son and I spent a long time discussing what we had just seen. At one point, I commented how the Park home was every bit as much a character in the film as the actors. One reviewer pointed out how the Kim house, the half basement, was so crowded and close, with the family members so often all sharing the screen together, as compared to the Park house and all of its open space, and how rarely the Park family appeared on the screen together, spread among the various rooms of the cavernous house. The grift was so subtle at the beginning that you didn’t realize it was a huge plan until it started unfolding. And the ending was such a gut punch. Great film.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > ttyymmnn
04/11/2020 at 01:44

It was a cool movie, I was fascinated with the house, the whole thing is a set they built. I was guessing where it was going and it didn’t happen that way! I thought they were going to try and replace the family or something. But it got ugly.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > VincentMalamute-Kim
04/11/2020 at 01:44

The Host is great too

ttyymmnn > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)
04/11/2020 at 01:56

So, who were the real parasites ?

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > ttyymmnn
04/11/2020 at 02:38

They all were!

EL_ULY > ttyymmnn
04/11/2020 at 11:29

haven’t seen this or Joker.

The thing though with me and critically acclaimed films, i’ll watch them once, really enjoy them, understand them, praise them, discuss them and that’s it. I’ll never want to watch them again or suggest them.

Jackass 3D, Napolean Dynamite, Terminator 2 and Ace Ventura 2 on the other hand LOLOLOL!! I can see those forever a billion times.

VincentMalamute-Kim > ttyymmnn
04/11/2020 at 11:39

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/parasite-neon-donald-trump-mocks-best-picture-1202212599/

ya, I was trying to make a funny.

I watched with a friend who knows Korean. The subtitles took a lot of liberties with the translation. Much more localized into slang type English. Not a direct translation at all. Looser translation of foreign movies than I’m used to seeing .

I think that was f or the better. The movie would’ve seemed even more foreign with a closer translation.

VincentMalamute-Kim > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)
04/11/2020 at 11:39

I’ll definitely look into it.

ttyymmnn > EL_ULY
04/11/2020 at 11:47

I am a professional musician. My career is sitting on stage for two hours, playing complex, compelling, intricate symphonies, concertos, etc. But when I listen to music on the radio or Spotify, I never listen to classical music. Listening to classical music requires involvement, attention, immersion. But when I want music in my life, I’m generally doing other things, and I don’t want to become that immersed or involved. I just want some music on, and I gravitate towards 60s and 70s rock, folk or roots music, stuff like that. I think the movies work on the same level. I was completely immersed and gripped by Pa rasite , but sometimes you just want to be entertained by something familiar and comfortable that you can walk away from for a few minutes but then come right back to, something that doesn’t require your undivided attention. It’s not to say that one is better than the other, it’s all about how involved in something you want to be.

VincentMalamute-Kim > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
04/11/2020 at 11:47

Exactly. For how long nothing much happened, it kept me on the edge of my seat waiting for the shoe to drop.

Current Hollywood products seem to follow specific formulas that I’ve gotten used to . For an a ction movie : set up the backstory, one or two small action scenes , some filler, climatic action scene which i f it’s a fight, then they punch each other for 20 minutes.

VincentMalamute-Kim > ttyymmnn
04/11/2020 at 11:48

Nice point about the character’s distances.

ttyymmnn > VincentMalamute-Kim
04/11/2020 at 11:54

From an interview with Bong Joon-ho, where he talks about the subtitles :

I noticed that some details, KaTalk and jjappaguri , are translated to English as WhatsApp and “ram-don;” how much oversight did you have on the translation?

I’ve worked with [translator] Darcy Paquet on almost all of my movies. He’s an American living in Korea, he created a website on Korean film, he’s a cinephile when it comes to Korean films, and he’s married to a Korean woman. It’s a combination of a Korean who can speak really good English and an American who can speak Korean really well, and because they work together so well, I’ve always received wonderful, high-quality subtitles.

In this case, with Parasite , there were a lot of particularly difficult things. Jjappaguri , Taiwanese castella cakes, flicking stink bugs, a specific kind of cave cricket; there were a lot of difficulties. But Darcy did an amazing job, whether it was calling jjappaguri “ram-don” or equating the Seoul National University documents with Oxford [for relative scale]. Over a long period of time, we both very patiently and carefully would look at the context, too, like, “In this dialogue, the thing that’s important is getting across the sense that these people are really rich and the scale of their house, so …” I would sit next to him and keep pointing out this stuff, and Darcy would tell me what he was thinking as well. The subtitles took a lot of work.

ttyymmnn > VincentMalamute-Kim
04/11/2020 at 12:01

I mean, just look at this shot:

Kinja'd!!!

The whole family together on one claustrophobic long shot. Pretty much tells you all you need to know.

VincentMalamute-Kim > ttyymmnn
04/13/2020 at 15:31

Good job noticing that (I’m assuming it was you who did). I like reading about those directorial points although I don’t usually consciously notice them.

Just watched the beginning of Whedon’s Firefly DVD commentary and he pointed similar instances of directing like the shot above.

VincentMalamute-Kim > ttyymmnn
04/13/2020 at 15:42

Thanks for that excerpt. It didn’t occur to me that someone would put that much effort into subtitling. And subtleties would be considerable. It makes sense since the subtitles flowed so well in English. It was more from the cursing and expletives that I got the sense that things weren’t being directly translated.

I now have a higher appreciation for the work involved in subtitles and that’s caused me to reflect on two current cases. I don’t remember if you’re one of the anime crowd here.

I’m watching Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai and the dialog is elevated above the anime norm as is the subtitling .

I usually watch dubbed for convenience but I’m also watching Chaika the Coffin Princess and the English voice acting and script is terrible compared to the Japanese and subtitles.

VincentMalamute-Kim > ttyymmnn
04/13/2020 at 15:43

Your high schooler seems advanced beyond his years.

ttyymmnn > VincentMalamute-Kim
04/13/2020 at 15:57

I don’t usually consciously notice them

I think what sets the great directors apart from the mediocre or bad is that they do things like this and you feel it, or sense it, even if you don’t think about it. It all adds to the overall feel of the film and the effectiveness of the storytelling.

ttyymmnn > VincentMalamute-Kim
04/13/2020 at 15:59

He is very sensitive and observant, almost to a fault sometimes. But yeah. Thanks.