New 'Parasite' trailer previews Bong Joon-ho's Cannes winner (original) (raw)

The 'Snowpiercer' director's latest film won the coveted Palme d'Or prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival

Published on August 14, 2019 11:02AM EDT

Parasite. It was all anyone coming out of the Cannes Film Festival could talk about. Now, followers of awards season who couldn’t be in France for the lavish industry event can get some sense of why those movie critics are so enthralled.

The new Parasite trailer reveals footage of the drama from director Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer, Okja). The South Korean film, which Joon-ho co-wrote with Jin Won Han, follows the down-on-their-luck Kim family whose eldest son takes a well-paid tutoring job at the wealthy Park family home. From there, it’s a bit of a mystery as a string of mishaps ensue after the first meeting between the two families.

The mystery is intentional, as Joon-ho hopes audiences will come to this film with little knowledge of what’s actually in store.

“For people of different circumstances to live together in the same space is not easy,” the director prefaced critics at Cannes. “It is increasingly the case in this sad world that humane relationships based on co-existence or symbiosis cannot hold, and one group is pushed into a parasitic relationship with another. In the midst of such a world, who can point their finger at a struggling family, locked in a fight for survival, and call them parasites? It’s not that they were parasites from the start. They are our neighbors, friends and colleagues, who have merely been pushed to the edge of a precipice. As a depiction of ordinary people who fall into an unavoidable commotion, this film is: a comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains, all leading to a violent tangle and a headlong plunge down the stairs. You are all invited to this unstoppably fierce tragicomedy.”

NEON

Parasite was awarded the coveted Palme d’Or prize for best film at Cannes by a jury led by _Birdman_‘s Alejandro González Iñárritu. Previous winners include Japanese tale Shoplifters, The Square with Elisabeth Moss, and I, Daniel Blake with Dave Johns.

The film will be released by Neon in New York and Los Angeles on Oct. 11.

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