1133 Okja

[Mr Sausage]

I don't know that Bong has "collapsed creatively" -- but I would say that he has radically shifted gears. If I had not liked his earlier work so much, I doubt I would have been so distressed over Parasite. In any event, I doubt I will ever really look forward to future films by him (though I may check them out). Whether his work now is "great" or not, it is certainly of much greater appeal to western audiences than his earlier work -- but it is no longer appealing to me (and selfishly, that's all I really care about). .

A bit fairweather to write off a director you've loved for 19 years because of a single film you didn't like, isn't it?

[domino harvey]

His films have decidedly acquired a patina of Western gloss and just the right amount of modern Orientalism for Western audiences to cream themselves all over. Not surprising since this affliction has infiltrated multiple facets of Korean pop culture since the 2010s (and explains its ubiquity in the media now). Park Chan Wook and Kim Ki Duk pander in a similar manner, though with less visual literacy in my opinion. The Korean society, culture, and sensibilities that I grew up in and with are virtually unrecognizable in Bong Joon Ho’s films since Snowpiercer. If Parasite were more forthright about poverty and marginalization in Korea, then the poorer family would be either darker skinned Southeast Asians or North Koreans (and none of its members knowing English). But of course, Bong Joon Ho, belonging to the privileged class of Korea, doesn’t even recognize this problem in his own culture.

Okja then is the perfect representative of Bong Joon Ho’s pivot toward a more “international” cinema style when he basically began to prostitute himself to Western money, accolades, and audiences. It’s sometimes an ostensibly “Korean” movie, complete with romanticized and anesthesized depictions of “rural life”, “city versus countryside”, and “Asian family values.” This isn’t to say he’s alone in this among Asian directors (Park Chan Wook embraces the “crazy Asian” vibe instead), but Bong Joon Ho is perhaps the most successful example. What a laugh that Korea, a First World country, has become the poster child for economic hardship in Asia.

I also hate a former favorite band once more people started listening to them, though I too have justifications that make it sound like I’m upset for different “important” reasons

[Salamanca]

I also hate a former favorite band once more people started listening to them, though I too have justifications that make it sound like I’m upset for different “important” reasons

I don’t think it’s useful to the conversation to make presumptions about the motivations behind my criticisms. It stinks too much of ad hominem arguments and frankly beneath this forum. I’m perfectly willing to discuss the change in aesthetic pathways Bong Joon Ho made at a certain point in his career and how he’s embraced “poverty chic” for easy Western consumption.

[MichaelB]

I don't know that Bong has "collapsed creatively" -- but I would say that he has radically shifted gears. If I had not liked his earlier work so much, I doubt I would have been so distressed over Parasite. In any event, I doubt I will ever really look forward to future films by him (though I may check them out). Whether his work now is "great" or not, it is certainly of much greater appeal to western audiences than his earlier work -- but it is no longer appealing to me (and selfishly, that's all I really care about). .

I feel similarly about Kieślowski’s Three Colours trilogy, so I know exactly where you’re coming from. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that White is comfortably my favourite, as that’s the one with the closest affinity to his earlier work.

[Michael Kerpan]

MichaelB -- I really love White, but the others not so much...

[Michael Kerpan]

A bit fairweather to write off a director you've loved for 19 years because of a single film you didn't like, isn't it?

Actually his work started to make me feel uneasy as early as Mother. This came out around the time of LEE Chang-dong's Poetry -- and I felt the contrast in sensitivity (in films involving a rather similar context) was pretty glaring. Did I still admire Mother? Yes -- but it worried me. Pretty much each subsequent film felt a bit more and more "off". I wonder whether I would have watched and accepted those films at all if I had not liked his earliest work as much as I did. Okja, which I hoped was an aberration, turned out to be no such thing. But while I found some at least occasional endearing goofiness in that, I found none in Parasite. My reaction was not far from Salamanca's. I found this infuriatingly phony (and patronizing of "the lower orders" -- very like Kurosawa's Dodeskaden, only much more calculating). I felt that Kore'eda's treatment of "those at the bottom" in Shoplifters immeasurably better. I saw Parasite as the culmination of a process -- which had been fantastically successful commercially speaking. Given this international success, I can't imagine Bong pulling a Neil Young-like (post-Harvest) stunt of making his next work deliberately alienating to his newly-exploded base of fandom. Consequently, I have little hope that any new work of his will rekindle the feelings I once had. But we shall see.

So, for now, my Korean favorites are LCD, Hong and (when he is on target) HUR Jin-ho. Bong is, shall we say, is on "probation".

[A Tempted Christ]

Beaver

[vsski]

Aren’t we on a rather slippery slope here trying to define what makes a Korean (substitute by any nationality) filmmaker.
Was Snowpiercer ever designed to be a “Korean” movie? And is the rather questionable depiction of Korea’s economically disadvantaged reason for saying it’s not worthwhile movie and way above what many other films were in that year, just because it’s no longer a “Korean” movie.

Kurosawa Akira has been accused many times of not making Japanese films as after all he adopted Shakespeare and American crime novels into a Japanese cultural context and yet many people believe him to be one of the greatest filmmakers in history.

And are Bergman’s movies with themes of suicide, depression and religious trauma representative of “Swedish” movies.

I’m not trying to question people’s preferences here, but does a filmmaker have to stick to what someone defined as their national cinema and the moment they deviate, they are less of filmmaker for it?

And for the record Parasite is not my favorite Bong movie (by far), but that didn’t make me disappointed in him for going into a different direction.

[Michael Kerpan]

vsski -- Is anyone here actually saying (or even implying) that Bong isn't a "Korean filmmaker" anymore?

I don't see Snowpiercer as being about Korea at all -- it just had a couple of Koreans as characters. But Okja and Parasite are certain ostensibly about Korea. (I personally liked Snowpiercer more than Okja or Parasite).

I disliked Parasite not because it "wasn't Korean" but because I just plain didn't like almost any aspect of the film.

[vsski]

His films have decidedly acquired a patina of Western gloss and just the right amount of modern Orientalism for Western audiences to cream themselves all over. Not surprising since this affliction has infiltrated multiple facets of Korean pop culture since the 2010s (and explains its ubiquity in the media now). Park Chan Wook and Kim Ki Duk pander in a similar manner, though with less visual literacy in my opinion. The Korean society, culture, and sensibilities that I grew up in and with are virtually unrecognizable in Bong Joon Ho’s films since Snowpiercer. If Parasite were more forthright about poverty and marginalization in Korea, then the poorer family would be either darker skinned Southeast Asians or North Koreans (and none of its members knowing English). But of course, Bong Joon Ho, belonging to the privileged class of Korea, doesn’t even recognize this problem in his own culture.

Okja then is the perfect representative of Bong Joon Ho’s pivot toward a more “international” cinema style when he basically began to prostitute himself to Western money, accolades, and audiences. It’s sometimes an ostensibly “Korean” movie, complete with romanticized and anesthesized depictions of “rural life”, “city versus countryside”, and “Asian family values.” This isn’t to say he’s alone in this among Asian directors (Park Chan Wook embraces the “crazy Asian” vibe instead), but Bong Joon Ho is perhaps the most successful example. What a laugh that Korea, a First World country, has become the poster child for economic hardship in Asia.

I certainly would read this as Bong no longer being a Korean filmmaker.

[vsski]

vsski -- Is anyone here actually saying (or even implying) that Bong isn't a "Korean filmmaker" anymore?

I don't see Snowpiercer as being about Korea at all -- it just had a couple of Koreans as characters. But Okja and Parasite are certain ostensibly about Korea. (I personally liked Snowpiercer more than Okja or Parasite).

I disliked Parasite not because it "wasn't Korean" but because I just plain didn't like almost any aspect of the film.

I personally didn’t see Parasite as specifically about Korea rather than about the disparity between rich and poor, which happened to unfold in Korea, but frankly could have been placed in many other countries just as well.

So why did you dislike the movie so much?

[Michael Kerpan]

vsski -- Honestly, I've actively been trying to forget Parasite ever since watching it. So, at this point, detailed criticisms are probably no longer possible. I almost never have such adverse reactions to the work of people whose work I've admired.

Treating it as a film not specifically about Korea wouldn't make me like it any better. I would find it equally repellent, either way.

I don't require anyone else to share my "extreme lack of enthusiasm".

[vsski]

Fair enough Michael and I had no intention of converting you .
I’m just surprised as your reactions here to other movies you aren’t necessarily a fan of are typically more measured.

So what are your favorite Bong movies (and I have a feeling we maybe more in line than you think)?

[Computer Raheem]

His films have decidedly acquired a patina of Western gloss and just the right amount of modern Orientalism for Western audiences to cream themselves all over. Not surprising since this affliction has infiltrated multiple facets of Korean pop culture since the 2010s (and explains its ubiquity in the media now). Park Chan Wook and Kim Ki Duk pander in a similar manner, though with less visual literacy in my opinion. The Korean society, culture, and sensibilities that I grew up in and with are virtually unrecognizable in Bong Joon Ho’s films since Snowpiercer. If Parasite were more forthright about poverty and marginalization in Korea, then the poorer family would be either darker skinned Southeast Asians or North Koreans (and none of its members knowing English). But of course, Bong Joon Ho, belonging to the privileged class of Korea, doesn’t even recognize this problem in his own culture.

Okja then is the perfect representative of Bong Joon Ho’s pivot toward a more “international” cinema style when he basically began to prostitute himself to Western money, accolades, and audiences. It’s sometimes an ostensibly “Korean” movie, complete with romanticized and anesthesized depictions of “rural life”, “city versus countryside”, and “Asian family values.” This isn’t to say he’s alone in this among Asian directors (Park Chan Wook embraces the “crazy Asian” vibe instead), but Bong Joon Ho is perhaps the most successful example. What a laugh that Korea, a First World country, has become the poster child for economic hardship in Asia.

Like many in this forum, this post bothers me, but for reason outside of "I like Bong Jong-ho". There's a vague Orientalism to some of the criticisms that are being dished at Bong's post-Mother work that strikes me as disingenuous simply due to the idea of a proper "Korean" film and how it should be made. Granted, I'm not Korean (neiter nationally nor ethnically), but I find this critique to be rooted in a sort of cultural purity; there is only one way to interrogate, portray, or discuss Korean society and culture, and any other is objectively wrong. While there are portrayals of Koreans and their culture that are actively wrong (i.e. Westerners viewing it as something "exotic" [-X), I find that to say there is an actively "correct" way to showcase a culture makes me uncomfortable.

Granted, there are some parts of this that I agree with. I have recognized the appropiation of Western tropes into Korean pop culture, and the ignorance of how many Western consumers "appreciate" Korean media on a shallow, culturally ignorant lens deeply uncomfortable. There was a part of me that was bothered by the response to Parasite from many Western viewers, with them, intentionally or not, backhandedly complimenting the film as though Korea, and Asia at large, isn't capable of making media that is just as technically and narratively well-made (if not better) as what Hollywood produces on a daily basis.* But this idea of Bong prostituting himself to Western taste, or the majority of Korea filmmaking being made to pander to what a non-Korean audience thinks it should be strikes me as a bad faith argument.

*Before anyone over-interprets this, I am not saying that Parasite is comparable to a Hollywood film. I'm making the point that people (particularly young people) were seemingly flabbergasted that a non-American movie can contain things like thrills, visual panache, social commentary, etc. It seems that the idea of "foreign" films being inscrutable art films was still the base mode of thinking for most Americans before Parasite was released in the States. Hopefully, that mentality is something that can be flushed down the drain.

[Michael Kerpan]

vsski -- Barking Dogs and Memories of Murder are the Bong films I admire most, with Host in third place. My reaction to Parasite was about the same as my reaction to Godard's Weekend -- and probably for the same basic reasons. (My reaction to Kurosawa's Dodesukaden was similar, but less intense).

I think Bong is making the kind of movies he now truly wants to make -- it's just that these movies are increasingly not the kind of movies I want to see.

Here's an interesting (I think) Korean critique of Parasite: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/f ... an-society

I didn't read this at the time I saw the film -- but it captures some of the things that made the film unpalatable to me.

[vsski]

Thanks for sharing Michael, I had not read the article and it certainly is an interesting read of the movie and clearly different from mine, as I never saw it as an attempt to specifically critique Korean society and more of an allegory of rich versus poor and the inability to understand each other and how each other’s actions lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations and ultimately disaster.

But as I mentioned before, while I didn’t have the reaction you did, it is not my favorite film by Bong, and actually as I suspected I would name the exact same films you did.

Still, I’m looking forward to see what he does next.

[Mr Sausage]

Rich vs poor doesn't exist in a vacuum, tho'. Sure, the theme can be examined in many societies, but that doesn't make the theme de facto non-specific. That Parasite is set in contemporary Korean society does mean something.

Also, it's not an allegory for rich vs. poor, it's just about rich vs poor. Class conflict is the outward, surface-level theme. To be an allegory, other things would have to stand in for class conflict.

[vsski]

My bad Mr. Sausage, as I chose the word allegory after reading the article, and while the author alluded that rich vs. poor could be read as greed vs. hunger, for me rich vs. poor felt more as a stand-in in for the inability of people to properly communicate their respective needs across or due to their societal positions that then spirals out of control and leads to dire consequences, but I didn’t state this correctly.
And maybe I still can’t express myself correctly, but for some reason for me the movie never came across as wanting to make a social statement about today’s Korean society (like a Ken Loach type movie may have done) even though it’s clearly set in Korea, which I simply attributed to the fact that the director is from Korea.

If someone would come in with that expectation I can clearly see why this would not resonate or worse being seen as a glossy thriller / action movie that uses the social context as a shallow foundation to drive the plot.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Recreate the trauma of Okja being forced into being a slab of meat by buying your own Okja plushie.