{"id":4787,"date":"2019-06-02T07:51:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T14:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=4787"},"modified":"2019-06-19T07:58:43","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T14:58:43","slug":"with-parasite-bong-joon-ho-comes-back-to-attack-his-homeland-and-wins-it-a-palme-dor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/?p=4787","title":{"rendered":"Korea Blog: With &#8220;Parasite,&#8221; Bong Joon-ho Comes Back to Attack His Homeland \u2014 and Wins it a Palme d\u2019Or"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><Center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/KB-Parasite-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4788\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/KB-Parasite-1.jpg 1000w, http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/KB-Parasite-1-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/KB-Parasite-1-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/center><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>When a Korean wins a major international award, that award tends to be seen here in Korea as having been won for, or even by, the nation itself. Olympic gold medals, if not silver or bronze, have long mattered a great deal. Anticipation for another Nobel has run high since former president Kim Dae-jung\u2019s Peace Price in 2000. The 2016 Man Booker International Prize went to novelist Han Kang and her English translator Deborah Smith for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.lareviewofbooks.org\/the-korea-blog\/sex-surreality-social-conformity-han-kangs-vegetarian-sprouts-onto-u-s-literary-landscape\/\"><em>The Vegetarian<\/em><\/a>, but in the eyes of much of the press here, the validating honor also went to Korean literature itself.&nbsp; Over the past decade or two, Korean film has enjoyed a higher global profile than many other products of Korean culture, but no Korean filmmaker had ever come back from Cannes with a Palme d\u2019Or. Or rather, none ever had until last week, when Korea \u2014 or rather, Bong Joon-ho \u2014 won it with&nbsp;<em>Parasite<\/em>&nbsp;(\uae30\uc0dd\ucda9).<\/p><p>Cinephiles may wonder what took the Cannes jury so long to bestow the Palme d\u2019Or upon a Korean film, given the astuteness the festival has shown in regard to Asian cinema in general: they gave one to Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul<em>\u2018s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives<\/em>&nbsp;in 2010 and have given five to Japanese pictures over the past 65 years, most recently Kore-eda Hirokazu\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Shoplifters&nbsp;<\/em>in 2018. That film, about a poor but cheerful quasi-family clinging to the margins of modern Japanese society through a life of small-time crime, has more than a little in common with&nbsp;<em>Parasite<\/em>, which tells the story of a father, mother, son, and daughter living by their wits in the closest thing to a Seoul slum a mainstream movie has dared portray. Earning a meager income by folding cardboard pizza boxes, the Kim family may not have to shoplift \u2014 not regularly, at least \u2014 but they do have to live by their wits, seizing upon any and all minor opportunities that present themselves just as they do the unprotected wi-fi signals that reach the corners of their run-down basement apartment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Read the whole thing <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.lareviewofbooks.org\/the-korea-blog\/parasite-bong-joon-ho-comes-back-attack-homeland-wins-palme-dor\/\">at the Los Angeles Review of Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a Korean wins a major international award, that award tends to be seen here in Korea as having been won for, or even by, the nation itself. Olympic gold medals, if not silver or bronze, have long mattered a great deal. Anticipation for another Nobel has run high since former president Kim Dae-jung\u2019s Peace [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4787"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4794,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4787\/revisions\/4794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.colinmarshall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}