For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved movies. It started with the animated Disney classics (“Peter Pan,” “Aladdin,” “The Lion King,” you name it) all on VHS’s gifted to us by my grandmother, a member of the Disney movie club at the time. I grew older, and my interests evolved from cartoons to “Star Wars,” then “The Lord of the Rings,” followed by the works of Stephen Spielberg (“Jaws” and “Jurassic Park”). I didn’t realize it at that point, but I was becoming a nerd. High school came, and there, I discovered Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight”), Alfred Hitchcock (“Psycho”) and Stanley Kubrick (“The Shining”). I started to recognize the people behind the lens just as much as the people in front.
This reached its height during my high school years, when I started watching the Oscars. Seeing movies nominated for all sorts of obscure yet awesome awards, such as Sound Editing or Original Screenplay, opened a Pandora’s box full of new films I’d have never thought to give the time of day.
In 2014, J.K. Simmons won the award for Best Supporting Actor for a movie called “Whiplash,” a film about an aspiring, young drummer being verbally abused by his band director who justifies his actions as the only way to create the next best musician. Because of a small budget, the film suffered from little to no marketing. Without the Oscars, it probably wouldn’t have come up on my radar at all. The Oscars taught me that there were movies out there, untouched by advertising agencies and large studios, that were still compelling and thought-provoking. It broadened the horizon of what movies could (and maybe even should) be for me and opened doors to new genres and styles that I had previously disregarded. The Oscars gave new magic to movies for me and acted as sort of a rejuvenating point of my year by providing me with exciting new stories to invest in.
This year’s Oscars was a treat.
For starters, I am blessed to have friends that appreciate movies as much as I do. It makes for fun late night living room conversations, and I don’t have to work extensively hard to convince the people I live with to watch a weird indie movie with me. In fact, we have a sizable bookshelf nearly filled with all sorts of DVDs of our favorites, and we partake in the occasional excursion to the theaters to watch “the next big thing.” Needless to say, we came into this award’s season prepared. “Joker,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “Little Women,” “Marriage Story” and “Ford v. Ferrari” were all a part of our arsenal. Some of us made predictions, others just agreed that there was no way Joaquin wouldn’t win Best Actor. Regardless, it was a cool, relaxed atmosphere to be in last Sunday night.
That was until the controversy hit.
Looking back on the nominees, there was a typical array of already established directors (Scorsese and Tarantino) coupled with some new players (Baumbach and Waititi), but among the flock lived a black sheep. This was of course Bong Joon Ho and his film “Parasite,” an entirely Korean film, in character, dialogue and setting. Unlike most of the nominees, I hadn’t seen this film prior to the Oscars, but based on what I had heard, I wasn’t surprised when it won Best Foreign Language Film. Towards the end of the night, I had to leave the room for a short moment, unfortunately during the announcement of the Best Picture winner. So I learned from a text message that “Parasite” had won the crown jewel of the Oscars as well as three other awards, leaving my friends and I stunned.
It took about twelve hours (six of which comprised of sleep) following the awards show for me to get over my astonishment at the results of the 2020 Oscars, and a subsequent fifty-one hours for me to finally find the time to watch the bracket-buster. So at 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon (you can check my math there) I watched “Parasite.” And boy was it a ride.
I couldn’t help but see various aspects of my favorite films show up in this compelling visual narrative, whether it was Hitchcock-ian suspense, or Kubrick-esque set design. Most importantly, the film was relatable. It was the story of a family suffering while fighting to survive. Sounds like a solid movie, doesn’t it? Why hadn’t I watched it before?
Because “Parasite” is an entirely Korean film, I probably wouldn’t have cared to watch it. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have shown up in any of the circles of films I devote my screen time to each day. However, because of the four Oscars it pulled in on Sunday night, “Parasite” accomplished something great, not just for itself, and not just for me, but for cinema. For too long the typical American moviegoer (myself heavily included here) has strayed away from foreign pictures. They just always seemed weird to me, which I know is a very hypocritical thing to say, and I apologize. The language barrier seems large when it comes to movies as well. I specifically heard someone say (in the context of “Parasite”) that they didn’t want to have to read all the subtitles. Maybe you feel the same way or maybe you don’t, but when the credits began to roll after the beautifully drawn-out final moments of “Parasite,” I couldn’t help but regret all the films I had missed out on all these years because of my unwillingness to read a one-inch line of text.
As I write and reflect, that regret turns into resolve, and I am thankful for the Oscars and more importantly, “Parasite,” not just for introducing the next evolution of my film interests, but for showing me that good stories can be found anywhere, no matter the language or culture.
We may not be so different from each other after all.
