Written by Andreas Babiolakis

This review is a part of the Palme d’Or Project: a review of every single Palme d’Or winner at Cannes Film Festival. Parasite won the sixty fourth Palme d’Or at the 2019 festival.

The film was selected by the following jury.
Jury President: Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Jury: Enki Bilal, Robin Campillo, Maimouna N’Diaye, Elle Fanning, Yorgos Lanthimos, Paweł Pawlikowski, Kelly Reichardt, Alice Rohrwacher.

By now, Parasite is the most reviewed film on Films Fatale, having been covered at its Canadian premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and then once it won the Best Picture Academy Award. Here it is being reviewed again for its inclusion in Cannes history, but I don’t think I will be covering it in such a full form again; it’s awful SEO practice to have so many different links pertaining to the exact same thing. As I have covered the film in full and have looked at its changing of history at the ninety second Academy Awards, I will using this space to only focus on its Palme d’Or importance, because even this tells its own story. Of course, Cannes’ top prize has been a prognosticator of legacies, shifting filmic styles, and waves destined to dominate. Something was a little bit different with this film, however. Bong Joon-ho was no stranger to acclaim, so Parasite was quite an anticipated film. It would be the first South Korean film to ever win the Palme d’Or (something that critics thought would have been a title that Burning held one year before, had the award not gone to Shoplifters). It was the first unanimous win since Blue is the Warmest Colour (another coveted motion picture). Parasite decimated what could have gone to Quentin Tarantino (his first since Pulp Fiction), Pedro Almodóvar (a former Jury head, but never a Palme d’Or winner), or Céline Sciamma for Portrait of a Lady on Fire: all three films being some of the best of these filmmakers’ careers, and yet none of them are Parasite.

No. Parasite is most certainly one of the best films of the 2010s, and I knew that seconds after having finished the film (hell, I felt this way as soon as the midway turning point happened). At this rate, I think a number of cinephiles and critics feel comfortable calling this one of the greatest films of all time, especially within Korean cinema, the thriller genre, and so many other sub categories (so, all time, if my calculations remain correct). I suppose this leaves Parasite open to being proclaimed an overrated film by many that could only get around to the film after so much acclaim dominated the tail end of 2019; nothing ever matches the high bar set by movie lovers that can’t contain their excitement surrounding great films. Maybe I was lucky that I was able to see Parasite so early at TIFF, but I wasn’t perturbed by the endless praise that Parasite got. I think it deserves every single kudos it has received. It really is that good. Its hype hasn’t died down either, and it has been three years already. It’s safe to say that this film is incredible.

Of course, the quality of the film made Parasite feel right at home at Cannes, but I think it has ticked off so many other boxes that fall in line with the festival’s preferred works. After meticulously covering every single Palme d’Or winner ever, I can see that it is a part of at least a few patterns of films that Cannes adores, including works that detail class struggles and societal failures (Rosetta, Shoplifters, The Working Class Goes to Heaven, amongst others), genre bending (Wild at Heart, Underground, All That Jazz, et cetera), and technical, artistic, and creative pushes in how a story can be told (pretty much all of the winners). Joon-ho has been one of the most unique voices in film ever since the twenty first century kicked off, and he has known how to tell stories about societal unfairness, how to amalgamate styles, and how to push the technical and creative limits of film time and time again. A win here for Joon-ho was inevitable.

This certainty extends past just how Joon-ho is as an artistic voice, as Cannes typically rewards auteurs that stand out in some way, shape, or form, even with wins for films that aren’t necessarily the director at their best (Kagemusha, Elephant, Dancer in the Dark), so I feel like the South Korean icon would have had some sort of Cannes appreciation at some point. Then again, Cannes also can pinpoint instant classics every once in a while, especially films that stand out and could not be defined upon release (Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction, The Cranes are Flying, Paris, Texas, the list goes on). They called it again here, but luckily it seems like the majority of the world knew that Parasite was something special upon release. I know it has only been a few years since it premiered, but I can’t recall any reaction quite like what Parasite got, where certain audiences were falling in love with this black comedy/thriller bit by bit: seeing a film experience waves of approval like this in the digital age is quite something (especially when new films kind of come and go, and we don’t get that global fixation on one particular film quite like we used to, outside of franchises I suppose).

If you’re interested in everything else I have to say about Parasite, you can check out my older reviews of the film at the top of this article. Otherwise, I think it has all been said before by now (even by myself). Parasite is a stroke of genius from a generational, perennial filmmaker. It only makes sense that it made as big of an impact on the Cannes Film Festival’s history as it did, well, pretty much everywhere else. It was the first international film to ever win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. A show was instantly ordered (still a work in progress). Criterion made it a part of their collection tout de suite. South Korean film, television, and music was already making its rounds worldwide, but I feel like Parasite and its success definitely helped with some works that came afterward to get off of the ground (Minari — even though it is an American production — and Squid Game come to mind); subsequently, South Korea’s global appeal in the visual, moving arts has also led a mainstream interest towards other nation’s exports (more than we have seen in years). In a time of blockbuster exhaustion, surface level laziness, streaming service labyrinths-of-choice, and a difficulty in getting ahead in the digital age, something like Parasite stood out as a breath of fresh air, a sign that film can still be in top form, and a unanimously beloved work that continues to be cherished. Its run started at Cannes, and that jury and audience must have known right away how lucky they were to see this first.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.