I think this is my favorite movie and theater experience this year.
A delicious masterclass on balancing and blending multiple tones and genres. Bong delivers something truly only he can deliver; a hysterical and incredibly tense study on how the violent disparity in wealth poisons so much between the classes.
This was a lot of fun when it wasn't being depressing. No, actually it was also fun when it was depressing. I guess my only criticism is what the film does not attempt to do. I think the tendency with a lot of films about the economic and social inequality between the rich and the poor is that they tend to just depict poverty as something that is terrible and oppressive but they often do so without acknowledging how that poverty can be remedied, notably through redistribution of wealth through taxation.
I mean, I get that it's important to show that being poor is very stressful and that some people are so desperate so as to sell their soul for a little comfort but I also wished that films that address poverty depicted it as a systemic problem instead of an individual circumstance that the film ultimately thinks can be remedied by getting a university education.
This was a lot of fun when it wasn't being depressing. No, actually it was also fun when it was depressing. I guess my only criticism is what the film does not attempt to do. I think the tendency with a lot of films about the economic and social inequality between the rich and the poor is that they tend to just depict poverty as something that is terrible and oppressive but they often do so without acknowledging how that poverty can be remedied, notably through redistribution of wealth through taxation.
I mean, I get that it's important to show that being poor is very stressful and that some people are so desperate so as to sell their soul for a little comfort but I also wished that films that address poverty depicted it as a systemic problem instead of an individual circumstance that the film ultimately thinks can be remedied by getting a university education.
The film definitely does not think that.
That’s why the final letter is all a fantasy. He’s still trapped in the semi-basement, with nowhere to go. I read in an interview that it’ll take him 564 years to become rich enough to buy the mansion.
This was a lot of fun when it wasn't being depressing. No, actually it was also fun when it was depressing. I guess my only criticism is what the film does not attempt to do. I think the tendency with a lot of films about the economic and social inequality between the rich and the poor is that they tend to just depict poverty as something that is terrible and oppressive but they often do so without acknowledging how that poverty can be remedied, notably through redistribution of wealth through taxation.
I mean, I get that it's important to show that being poor is very stressful and that some people are so desperate so as to sell their soul for a little comfort but I also wished that films that address poverty depicted it as a systemic problem instead of an individual circumstance that the film ultimately thinks can be remedied by getting a university education.
Yep, just like the last dozens of times that it has worked perfectly for everyone and hasn't miserably failed at all.
This was a lot of fun when it wasn't being depressing. No, actually it was also fun when it was depressing. I guess my only criticism is what the film does not attempt to do. I think the tendency with a lot of films about the economic and social inequality between the rich and the poor is that they tend to just depict poverty as something that is terrible and oppressive but they often do so without acknowledging how that poverty can be remedied, notably through redistribution of wealth through taxation.
I mean, I get that it's important to show that being poor is very stressful and that some people are so desperate so as to sell their soul for a little comfort but I also wished that films that address poverty depicted it as a systemic problem instead of an individual circumstance that the film ultimately thinks can be remedied by getting a university education.
The film definitely does not think that.
That’s why the final letter is all a fantasy. He’s still trapped in the semi-basement, with nowhere to go. I read in an interview that it’ll take him 564 years to become rich enough to buy the mansion.
Ah, ok, thanks for clearing that up for me.
The way it was edited I thought that the second-to-last shot was just a glimpse into a future that had not yet occurred as opposed to it being a fantasy sequence.
This was a lot of fun when it wasn't being depressing. No, actually it was also fun when it was depressing. I guess my only criticism is what the film does not attempt to do. I think the tendency with a lot of films about the economic and social inequality between the rich and the poor is that they tend to just depict poverty as something that is terrible and oppressive but they often do so without acknowledging how that poverty can be remedied, notably through redistribution of wealth through taxation.
I mean, I get that it's important to show that being poor is very stressful and that some people are so desperate so as to sell their soul for a little comfort but I also wished that films that address poverty depicted it as a systemic problem instead of an individual circumstance that the film ultimately thinks can be remedied by getting a university education.
The film definitely does not think that.
That’s why the final letter is all a fantasy. He’s still trapped in the semi-basement, with nowhere to go. I read in an interview that it’ll take him 564 years to become rich enough to buy the mansion.
Ah, ok, thanks for clearing that up for me.
The way it was edited I thought that the second-to-last shot was just a glimpse into a future that had not yet occurred as opposed to it being a fantasy sequence.
There is also a parallel between the scene at the beginning when
the son falsifies his degree and tells his father not to worry, that he "has a plan", and that he will get the degree for real later, and the scene at the end when he tells his father not to worry, that he "has a plan" and that he will buy the house, a parallel that is very melancholic imo. The son is still as delusional, and convinced he may rise in society, but the film in the meantime has made it clear that all his plans are bound to fail, so the parallel in the use of vocabulary, imo, means he's going to fail as he failed to get his degree.
There's also a nice opposition between the son who is delusional and the father who on the contrary has lost all his illusions ("the plan is to have no plan"), except his faith in his children's illusions.
