Ahead of the 2020 Academy Awards, Vulture is revisiting the endings of this years Best Picture nominees.
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This article was originally published in 2019.
The world appears unchanged, but they are no longer the same.
Instead, theres a disquieting dread.
Parasite, Bongs latest, gut-twisting, Cannes Awardwinning film, is no different.
They let the smoke from the public fumigation into their apartment for some free disinfectant.
A story about two homes the upstairs family and the downstairs reveals yet another lurking underneath.
The Kims are shocked by the state of his living conditions.
Chung-sook huffily refuses both labels.
Instead, the two families fight for their place at the trough.
Temporarily the Kims win out, trapping Mun-kwang and her husband, Kun-sae, in the bunker.
In the final act, Bong carefully constructs the Parks carefree spontaneity onto the backs of the Kims.
So Ki-taek stabs the wealthy Park patriarch and runs away.
The coda of the film was the second epiphany Bong had while working on the script.
(The first was the very idea of a third family hidden underneath the house.)
The Parks would move out, only to be replaced by a German family.
The particularities may have changed, but everyones station has remained the same.
His father, using a method Kun-sae perfected, is tapping out a message to him.
The film ends with Ki-woo writing a reply.
As he speaks in a voice-over, we see his fantasy take shape: He has a plan.
Hes going to go to college, and get a job, and make a lot of money.
There is no mistaking what the reality is.
His desire to continue striving is Sisyphean and is the boulder that will eventually crush him.
Its a surefire kill, Bong tells me about the final shot.
Thats the surefire kill.
And thats what he wanted the ending to do.
I just felt that frankness was right for the film, even though its sad.
Bong Joon-hos worldview comes through most clearly in his endings: clear, bleak, and unrelenting.
The horrors in his films often mirror what he sees in the world.
There are people who are fighting hard to change society.
Im not making a documentary or propaganda here.
Thats what I believe is the beauty of cinema.
