Parasite, two short reviews

Hi Charles,

I finally caught Parasite at the Paignton Vue last night. Surely this will be the only time a South Korean film will ever be shown in a cinema chain more in thrall to Star Wars, Marvel super heroes and audiences that are more captivated by what they intake orally than visually.

The film was top drawer. I'm always a sucker for a film that includes a class commentary but was more impressed with the effortless way the film traversed a number of genres. It  begins as a con artist film as the family skilfully insert themselves into the Park household and then incorporates comedy, thriller, drama, and finally, tragedy elements as the plot builds momentum. And what a plot it is. Throwing the audience completely off kilter once the Kim family have their feet under the table, the narrative switching up gears, continuously defying expectation and laying out it's critique of class and status. A lighness of touch in execution which gradually adds layers of dramatic weight and subtext.

In short, what a fantastic piece of cinema. At the risk of sounding old (I do turn 40 in August!) it is rare for me to watch a film nowadays and get "that feeling". By this I mean that overwhelming sense that on leaving the cinema and strolling home that you have seen something unique. Even better was that I watched this with an audience who were as immersed as myself in what was unfolding in front of them. Some may have purchased their tickets off the back of the best picture Oscar buzz but subtitles, or no subtitles, quality story telling will always shine through. 

Hope you enjoyed the film as much as I did. Catch you in The Bay soon.

Regards

Justin

Dear Justin,

     It was great to meet with you again last Friday. Thank you for your acute observations on Parasite. I found that I agreed with you on the ideas you put forward. Below is an extract from my journal which gives my thoughts on the film but they are far from being as comprehensive, cogent, well developed and as insightful as yours.

        "This evening we are off to Dartington to watch the Oscar winning Parasite. 

      "It was a superb film: a tragic farce, though not so farcical as to divorce itself from true emotional experience . Its content and atmosphere showed not so much how culturally different South Korea is from the UK but that the vast gulf between the rich and the poor is certainly universal. The film developed other interesting themes. One such is that all human beings are parasitic and live off other people and significantly the rich live off the labour of the poor. 

      "In a very dramatic flood scene we were reminded that the poor of this world also always seem to end up in the shit. 

     "All the principal actors were excellent in their parts. We are there with the human beings they bring to life. 

    "Given the current American political governance it was a brave but, in my view, right choice by the academy. I’m pleased it won the Oscar.  

     "I rate it in the top 25 films I’ve seen which is saying something for I’ve been watching films since I first went to the pictures at the Rialto in Lochee in 1950. I must make that list of my top 25 films. At first thought the films I’d include in a catalogue of films I have my self seen are, High Noon; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Point Blank; Lust,Caution; Brokeback Mountain; Ju Dou; Bonnie and Clyde; Morgan, a Suitable Case for Treatment, African Queen and more. I guess I couldn’t do a list of 25. It’ll need to be a list of 100, but it may be that lists are no measure, just another list living off the perceived wisdom of a previous one."

I hope we meet up soon,

Best wishes,

Charles

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ps I offer my thanks to Justin Frost for his insightful and concise  review of the film Parasite.

Parasite, a South Korean feature film shot in 2019 which was adjudged the best film in the 2020 Oscars. It was directed by directed by Bong Joon-ho.

Missing the Target: should have gone to... In February when we could go where we liked.

  Yesterday was a difficult day. I decided to leave for Brixham quite early in order to visit the NatWest Bank in Paignton (there is no longer a NatWest branch in Totnes) to deposit a sum of money, and then to stroll around Brixham harbour prior to fulfilling an appointment I had in that town. 

  Before leaving home I was about to make a phone call to a prospective client when my MacBook Air laptop asked me if I would like to update the IOS operating system on my iPhone. I agreed and started the update. I was given a message that there were items in my iTunes folder which could not be transferred because they had not been purchased from Apple. I pressed the “continue” button and at that stage my phone froze and I was no longer able to access it, or the data stored in it. I could have coped with this until I got expert help but unfortunately I had promised to call my prospective client and his telephone number had been on my iPhone. I didn’t want to let him down so I walked quickly to the lower end of town and sought help from the mobile phone shop there and from Quay IT, the computer company in Totnes. Neither could help me. I was now running very short of time but since the EE shop which provided me with my mobile phone and its accompanying contract is in Paignton and since I intended to visit my bank there and that it was on my way to Brixham, my final destination, I decided I would risk taking a few minutes to pay the shop a visit. 

My original intention had been to make the journey by bus but I remained determined to make the phone call to my prospective client and the only way I could keep on schedule was to look out for a taxi to take me to Paignton. I almost ran - the last time I actually ran was about 20 years ago - to the taxi stance on The Plains at Totnes. A car was parked there. The driver, a woman, didn’t seem interested in me as a potential customer so impatiently I opened the front passenger door and made to get into the car. I was about to tell her my destination when I saw how horrified she was. “Oh! You’re not a taxi are you?” “No,” she replied and after a moment or two she seemed to see a funny side to what had happened. I apologised and slunk off in a high state of embarrassment.

      If you know Totnes you will be aware there are two parking bays  on the Dartmouth Inn side of The Plains, one is for taxis and the other is for the public. You've already guessed which one I, in my anxiety, had landed upon. After a few minutes of waiting, I boarded a legitimate taxi at the proper taxi stance.

      I was becoming fearful of being late for my appointment in Brixham but was still determined to try to do all that I had hoped to do. When the taxi driver dropped me off in Paignton I rushed to the EE mobile phone shop on the pedestrianised Victoria Street, burst into it, and pulled out my phone and asked an attendant if she could help me fix it. At that moment I spotted numerous pairs of spectacles displayed  around the walls and it came upon me that I’d entered the wrong shop. I was in Specsavers which is adjacent to the EE shop.

     At least those who witnessed my inverted take ("he did go to Specsavers") on the "should have gone to Specsavers" television advert,  appreciated the comic nature of the incident and when I did get into the EE Shop, a young man there gave me good advice which allowed me to fix my phone when I returned home. Though I didn't have time to saunter around the harbour, I got to the bank, fulfilled my appointment in Brixham, and I was able in the early evening to contact my prospective client and arrange an appointment. All lived happily ever after. 

Easy mistake to make.

     On further reflection about what happened yesterday I was inclined think my missing the target represented further evidence of a speedy decline in my mental acuity caused by advancing years and that may well be so. 

     Yet I was consoled by a boyhood memory of being driven home (probably from Arbroath or Broughty Ferry) one Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon. I was about eight years old and my parents stopped the car  across the road from our favourite fish n’chip shop Soave’s on Lochee High Street. They told me to get two fish suppers for themselves and two thruppenny bags of chips for my sister and me. I was urged to “hurry up about it”. I dashed swiftly across the road through the double doors into the shop, ran up to the high counter and cried, “Can I have two fish suppers and two thrupenny bags of chips, please?” As the words came out of my mouth, bursting out around me was the laughter of men who were sitting at tables scattered around the room. Another man, who also seemed to think me worthy of amusement,  was standing leaning against the counter and I noticed he and the others were drinking from glasses containing an amber coloured liquid. The man behind the counter said to me, “Sonny, ye’re up the wrang dreel, try next door.”

      I’d never been in a place like this before but I was informed later I had run into a pub: The Burns Bar. Aware that I had blundered I sheepishly left the licensed premises, looked across the road to our car and saw that my parents and my sister seemed to think my discomfiture was very amusing. I went next door to Soave’s, got the fish n’ chips and when I’d returned to the car I handed them, and the change, to my Mummy.

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A love lyrics list for Valentine's Day

     Yesterday I was out in Totnes and would you believe it, I met my wife in the greetings card shop. What was she doing there? What was I doing there? 

   For fun I decided to make a random list of songs with the word "love" in their title and in their first line. It may amuse you to read the list or to guess who composed the songs or performed them. See how far you get without using your search engine. I hope you can enjoy a few moments of romantic escape with it

This is the reason I was in the greetings card shop but don't tell my wife

Here is the love list :-

Just you and I know true love ways,

Love, love will tear us apart again,

Love me tender, love me true,

My love is like a red, red rose,

Love you so bad,

Love and affection, 

Only love can break your heart,

I'm in the mood for love,

Love, love me do,
Love letters straight from your heart,

Words of love you whisper soft and true,

Young love, first love,

You always hurt the one you love,

I'll never love again,

Your heart is open to love and regret,

All you need is love,
What's love got to do with it?

That's how strong my love is,

To know, know him is to love, love, love him,

I'll never fall in love again,

Will you still love me tomorrow?

Les mots d'amour,

Ain't no cure for love,

Chanson d'amour,

When will I be loved?

I feel love,

I'm not in love,

You can't deny there's a spectre of love,

Don't say you love me,

Should have been loved,

I love it when you call,

It must be love, love, love,
I want to be loved by you, just you and nobody else but you,

You made me love you, I didn't want to do it,

and, 

Love is the sweetest thing.

Happy Valentine's Day!

In Memoriam : Prudence Cat, who Died February 1st, 1999

21 years ago today, Pru, our much loved cat died. Like all - I imagine - special family cats she was ‘something else’. Here from my journal is an account of her last days.

Thursday, January 21st, 1999

     I took Prudence to the vet, the one whose premises are just below the East Gate at the top of Fore Street. He says her weight loss is a consequence of a cancerous tumour in her stomach. He wanted to put her to sleep there and then.  I told him today was my wife’s birthday and she would want to say good bye to Pru. I informed him I would bring her to him tomorrow.

Monday, January 25th

     We didn’t take Pru to see the vet on Friday, as he had advised me to do, because she was still purring and does not seem to be in great pain but I took her to him today because she continues to lose weight loss due to her stomach tumour. Again he said we should allow him to put her to sleep there and then. It was an unbearable feeling - Pru has been an integral of our family life for almost 20 years -  and I mentioned to him she was still eating a little and sleeping. I agreed to bring her in if we thought her condition had further deteriorated.

Friday, January 29th.

Pru dodders on purring but hardly eating and is now never sleeping. She is an old cat losing all her feline dignity and grace. We wonder whose needs are being met by us keeping her alive.

Saturday, 30th January, 1999

Pru has developed a cough.

Prudence, Lady Totnes: always hoping to improve her position

Monday, February 1st, 1999.

Prudence Cat, also known as Pru, the Empress of Wellbury, Dowager of St.Albans and Lady Totnes was put to sleep this evening.  Pru, a British Blue, was a snob, and she was in the main disdainful of other cats and most human beings. She tolerated us but she was ashamed that she was supported by folk who lived in a small end of terrace semi-detached house when she should have been with the well to do in a great country mansion. When any people who visited us looked reasonably wealthy, she, being the British Blue that she was, would moanfully chatter away to them saying that she ought to be better placed than she was. 

     Notwithstanding this, she was, in spite of her irritable nature, our family cat for over 19 years. She came to us when she was about a year old because we had a friend who knew Pru's first owner who said she had one too many cats and so was keen to divest herself of Pru. Of course it wasn’t put to us as harshly as that when we agreed to take her in but it was something that we very quickly came to came to understand.

     When she arrived at our house she had cat flu which she proceeded to pass on to the cat we already had, our beloved Sooty. Sadly cat flu proved too much for Sooty and she died about a week after Prudence crossed our threshold. She was a great hunter with a gigantic final pounce that captured most of her victims. She could catch a squirrel as easily as she could a bird, rat or mouse. In addition to these murderous ways Prudence disgraced herself on many occasions when not so well off strangers visited the house. She often shamed us when dear friends, (though always those who were not by nature sympathetic to felines) visited the house, but she kept her most maliciously violent behaviour for veterinary surgeons. 

     It was sad tonight to see that she had become so weak as not to be able to draw even the smallest drop of the vet’s blood, something she had achieved in a most vicious manner on each of her previous visits to the vet’s surgery. Indeed when first he experienced her volatile nature the vet insisted that if we wished to bring her to the surgery again we must phone up to make an appointment so that he could arrange for an additional person to assist him in handling her.  Tonight though she was too weak to maim the clinicians she did have the last miaow : she pee’d all over them. That’s my girl!  

     She was my cat though my wife might not agree with me but occasionally she would say that I loved Pru more than her. Now, only I know the truth. I loved her and eventually over the years she grew to love me some of the time. Pru, wherever you are, the Daddy loves you.

Prudence Cat

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