Parasite's Perfect Montage

that's a gun jeschica we don't the really annoys cause I'm gonna use action bong joon-ho is a filmmaker obsessed with rhythm you can sense it in all of his films but in his latest parasite he outdoes himself the tempo is perfectly calibrated as a viewer it almost feels like you're surfing the story the way the editing and camerawork sound design and music carries you from moment to moment I think bong knows that getting the pacing exactly right is the only way he can get his bold tonal shifts to work the result of such attention to rhythm is a totally immersive viewing experience the cadence of the whole movie is tightly controlled but there's a montage about 40 minutes in that distills his mastery into a perfect diamond of a sequence 60 shots almost exactly five minutes definitely my favorite five minutes of the year and I think it's worth taking a closer look at because it's really a thing of beauty first the setup the montage comes at the end of Act one of parasite after a poor family have almost successfully duped a rich family into hiring them all for service jobs the son becomes a tutor the daughter becomes an art teacher the father a driver and other attempting to bring the mother in as a housekeeper problem is that the existing housekeeper is well established and well liked by the rich family so the poor family hatches a plan to remove her from the picture it's a great idea to enact this plan in montage because we've already seen three successful cons at this point the tempo slowly building in each with a montage the cutting will get even faster and bong can bring the entire act to a crescendo also as the poor family's plans get more sophisticated it's only right that the filmmaking does as well a montage like this is going to test your ability to convey a lot of information across a limited number of shots in this case 60 let's take a look at the first few hanging on from guru run their opinion is Honiton grania Waterton Salman even Sarah a twisted Shiva [Music] cuckoo cribs havin do Tom trophic receiver such a door doesn't go too crazy well the Kogi's held on crew could to work a contra cut under something crazy kangaroo hot lava could carry yours a tiny car would cause a huge bang engines in his element saw cars Christian wear boxers and couvent a easy call it Sumatra Naja Monica City on criminals chief juniper gun and a car don't belong back in case come on Tony tell him to cool on the cloud Quran desert Juanita man hold it up on watch from Atlanta but you carry he sad thing the first thing I notice is how balletic everything is helped along by a classical piece from Handel's rohtul into opera the pacing is mesmeric bong achieves this by selectively using both slow motion and linear camera moves every shot offers a piece of information several foreshadow later moments in the montage and this referencing back and forth as well as the camera moves and the music all contribute to making the sequence into an organism all its own h1 a montage is a sequence that manipulates time look how many shots it takes to get from idea to execution chronica talent is hidden by mm cosmo swallows you a little caramel cremeux good hotel in Detroit honor Kotori token channel adore movie same package go Hokulani trans here to sing that liquor and a name [Music] bond gets from the moment the Sun hears about the housekeeper's allergy to the moment he poisons her in eight economical shots that's conciseness worthy of Hitchcock who bung actually snuck into this montage a few shots back the poor father is deceiving the rich mother so bond shows him literally taking her for a ride he sets the pace and she follows him but there's actually another level of control here because the words he says were written by his son who designed this duplicitous little play to get in there [Music] do you Iike oh I was its young conjoin Oh mom you're even in the Akutan the Ayakashi from naraku's hell at this point it's probably a good idea to bring up bongs editor Jin mo yang who obviously had a major role in shaping this sequence and the whole film now bong does a lot of the editing himself by extensively storyboarding but any editor will tell you that the rhythm of a scene comes down to my new adjustments and sometimes you have to get creative if you look at this shot for example frame by frame you can see something strange right here in the middle of this pan yang stitched together two different shots because neither individually has the perfect pacing from both actors so he Frankenstein's it to get the right tempo Cody Johnson correct Pancham bada Tahoe so not waking back hanging down there I mean when I say I'm using to quantify cell yang also had a big part in finessing this section of the montage which originally had much more repetition of the lines yang intercut the locations to give the tempo more bounce and as a result it feels like a single conversation which actually reinforces the conversation this montage is already having with itself a conversation that is about to pay off [Music] this montage is a testament to bong Joon hos control of his craft but it's also about control it comes at the moment in the story when the poor family's cunning their ability to control things has reached its pinnacle their plan was as perfect as the sequence and it went off just as smoothly but as we and the family quickly discover even the most airtight plans are vulnerable to events success often contains the seeds of a later downfall especially when it was achieved by means of cruelty in act 2 the bottom falls out narrative Li and literally and this montage is cast in a new light the plan was not as perfect as it seemed which of course makes the montage even more so hey everybody happy holidays Happy New Year happy decade thank you so much for watching this episode was brought to you by Squarespace if you don't know you can use Squarespace to make beautiful websites for anything you might need a personal site a wedding website a site for your business or portfolio and in just a few clicks you can have that website up and running their design team has crafted really amazing templates that work on computer browsers and on mobile switching perfectly between the two you can integrate your own photos and videos just a few clicks and you can even link your social accounts so that you can Auto post to Twitter and Facebook all from within Squarespace and over to Squarespace comm for a free trial when you're ready to launch and go to squarespace.com slash nerdwriter for 10% off your first purchase thanks again guys I will see you in the next decade

Channel: Nerdwriter1

Views: 4,985,412

Rating: 4.9668217 out of 5

Keywords: the nerdwriter, nerdwriter, nerdwriter youtube, youtube nerdwriter, nerd writer, nerdwriter1, nerdwriter channel, video essays, essays, education, education channel, nerd writer essays

Id: ma1rD2OP85c

Length: 8min 7sec (487 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 31 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/mintymosmos]

wow, looks like a masterpiece. Is this labeled as a dark comedy?

[u/aliygdeyef]

I absolutely loved this film! Thankfully, I saw it last night before 2020... everything from the acting, setting, music, lighting was amazing (camera work was very well done), the story was thrilling and kept me interested (tbh it did not feel like a 2 hour movie I was never bored, not once!) and the message was very cleverly delivered with loads of symbolism. Honestly, it deserves best picture (its to bad its international) but if this movie does not win best international film at the oscars Imma freak out. Truly a masterpiece! If you haven't seen it yet you need to!

[u/clairiotrental]

So awesome. 60 shots in five minutes, damn. So CLEAN.

[u/bob1689321]

Is it the peaches thing? That bit was absolute perfection.

[u/MrBunyan]

Best film of 2019. PERIOD.

I'd go so far to put it against anything in this decade.

EDIT: I didn't say it was the best of the decade, but I would argue one of the best.

[u/bobdebicker]

Nerdwriter's vocal delivery has changed drastically.

[u/LOTRcrr]

I’d like to watch but haven’t seen the film yet. Will it spoil too much?

[u/YalexWhy]

I watched tis with my family at the cinema and it was fantastic. I speak only partial korean but understod the whole plot from the great acting and massively built up tension. Black comdy truned dark with a powerful message.

[u/wishiwascooltoo]

Absolutely breathtaking and terrifyingly symbolic. A true masterclass in cinematic art.