Okja director Bong Joon Ho wants you to give foreign films with subtitles a chance. The South Korean director, who won the Golden Globe award for best foreign-language film for self-described “family tragicomedy” Parasite, delivered a moving acceptance speech at yesterday’s awards (January 5).
“Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films,” said Bong Joon-ho, who used a translator to deliver his acceptance speech mostly in Korean.
He continued: “Just being nominated along with fellow, amazing international filmmakers was a huge honor. I think we use only one language: the cinema.”
Parasite, the first Korean film to win the Golden Globe award for best foreign-language film, is a social satire based around class, involving a working class family scamming themselves into a rich family to fund their existence.
Since its debut at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival in May, where it was awarded the prestigious Palme d’Or, the movie has enjoyed stellar reviews, ranking number one in our 2019 Dazed roundup of best films. “It’s not only smart, bizarre and speaking to the core themes of inequality that ruins millions of people’s lives, Parasite is also the kind of movie you want to recommend to all your friends and rewatch just to see their reaction when that moment happens,” our film critic Nick Chen writes. Back in 2017, we interviewed Bong Joon-ho ahead of the release of his subversive, anti-capitalist feature Okja, about a genetically modified ‘super-pig’.
Oscars, over to you.
Watch the trailer for Parasite below.
