‘Parasite’ creates history; first foreign language film to win Oscar for ‘Best Picture’

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History was created on February 10, 2020 when South Korean movie ‘Parasite’ became the first foreign movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture. The movie was nominated in six categories overall and it won in four of them including Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay.

Though parasite missed out on awards for Best Production Design and Best Film Editing, it nevertheless set an unprecedented example in the history of Oscars and international cinema. Let’s take a look at the journey of the movie and what is it about.

PARASITE

The 2019 Drama-Mystery is directed by Bong Joon-ho, the critically acclaimed South Korean filmmaker who previously gave us movies like Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017) and The Host (2006).
Parasite tells the story of destitute Kim family who scheme to become employed by the wealthy Park family by infiltrating their household and posing as unrelated, highly qualified individuals. The movie incorporates the themes of greed and class-discrimination to give us a social satire that is full of both suspense and comic elements.

Parasite stars Cho Yeo-jeong, Park So-dam, Choi Woo-shik and Kang-Ho Song in lead roles. It turned out to be a major hit both in its home country and internationally- praised both by critics and general public.

THE JOURNEY

With a rating of 8.6 on IMDb and 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, Parasite is already a favorite of movie-goers with many terming it as a classic. It is internationally acclaimed as well, having being acknowledged in almost all major film festivals across the world and not only getting nominated but also winning awards left and right.
Its journey in the US award shows in itself is a story to count and recount again and again given that the USA is not very accepting of foreign artists unless they turn to English to present their work. This fact became even more apparent after the snub South-Korean group BTS received at this year’s Grammys despite being the best-selling artist worldwide. So it came as a pleasant surprise for the global audience to see the US giving Parasite its due recognition, despite it being in Korean.

Though Parasite did win big in the last month’s Golden Globe Awards, it was still unexpected for it to be not only nominated for the Oscars but win as well. As Director Bong Joon-ho himself said after the nominations that it’s “the first time something like this has happened…” saying it was indeed ‘rare’.
Anyways, this fact only makes ‘Parasite’ that much worthy- breaking all barriers it proved that art is truly transcendental and that…

“Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films…”

–Bong Joon-ho (January 5, 2020)