The reviews for Parasite , Bong Joong-ho's latest film , have been unanimous: it's a masterpiece. After winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival unanimously, the Korean film is nominated for five 2020 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director . We offer you ten reasons why. Ten gems of brilliance that you might (just maybe!) have missed.
? 10 delicious details that escaped you from Parasite
If you don't feel like reading about the meaning of the stone, the scene of the armchair, the sofa or the parents, we have made a perfect video for you:
1. Everyone follows the leader
Have you noticed how all the members of the Park family turn into magnetized barnacles when the father enters the scene? As soon as Mr. Park returns from work, his wife rushes to him, his son starts running around and squealing with delight, and even the three puppies cluster around the head of the family.
There would be nothing peculiar about it, of course, if it weren't for the striking way in which this phenomenon manifests itself in Parasite.
Taking into account the theme of the film and the way Korean families generally work (where the father is the main (or only) safeguard of economic support), we are sure that director Boong Jon-ho sought to underline in a subtle way the tremendous importance of capital in the operation of the Park family. In this case, the importance of the family member that generates the bills that the rest enjoy. 
2. Camera in bug mode
When they finally manage to escape the Parks' house, the Kims become almost literally parasites. It's no coincidence that the director chooses to use very long camera shots to show the father and sons scurrying through the city like liberated cockroaches. The moment gains even more energy thanks to the ticks' ever-downward movement, as they seem to return to the underground from which they came, pushed by the current of sewage , after yet another day of work in the heights of Seoul's elite.
The icing on the cake is the music (or, rather, the alien barrel organ) that we hear throughout one of the film's most harrowing moments: even though they haven't been discovered, the Kim family is miserable and dirty. Like a cockroach.
3. "We need a plan"
As soon as Da-hye says out loud that the family needs a plan to get rid of the Parks' maid in order to put her mother in her place, the director shows it to us. Although that, of course, the viewer still does not know.
Yet another example of the way absolutely nothing of Parasites happens by chance: the innocent hot sauce with which they season the pizza will be the key element ("the icing on the cake«) a few seconds later, during a sequence that starts without a bang and is crowned by a intense and growing violin harmony that ends up exploding in a… tuberculous way. Subtle and, at the same time, colossal.
4. Rookie corrects veteran
More than a detail, it is an intra-story that may have escaped you with great simplicity if you do not live in Korea or do not follow the news of the Korean movie scene out of habit.
When the Kim's son rehearses with his father how the plan to bring down the Park girl will unfold, what we see is a full-fledged theatrical rehearsal with the roles reversed: the rookie actor, Hyun Seung-min, tells him gives acting advice to the most seasoned and popular actor of the moment in South Korea, Song Kang-ho. The director himself has confessed that it was a humorous moment designed for the enjoyment of the South Korean public.
5. What does the rock or the stone mean? What is your message?
One of the strangest moments in the film is when the Kims' eldest son's classmate gives the family a rock. Without proper analysis, the piece of rock might be dismissed as an insignificant oddity. What is the significance of the rock in Parasite?
Indeed, Koreans do give each other rocks as gifts. Or at least, they used to. It's a tradition among elders (not among young people, which makes the gift in the film even stranger), as the director of Parasite mentioned in an interview. But what matters here is the symbolic value of the monolith, which becomes a talisman and a gauge of the family's fortunes and misfortunes.
What does the rock of Parasites mean?
As soon as the rock arrives at the Kim family's underground home, life improves for everyone. When the rock gets wet from flooding, things take a turn for the worse. And when the rock leaves the hideout… well, we don't see it again until it tumbles down the stairs of their other underground lair . And we all know how that ended, right?
The symbolism is such that there is a delicious detail that is worth noting: the second time we see a guy urinating near the Kim's dungeon, at first the son intends to hit the drunk with the rock.
The father, who from the very beginning had assigned the rock an exaggerated importance (recall the solemnity with which he thanked his son's friend for the gift), told him to leave the rock where it was and to take a bottle of water instead. It was after this first attempt by the rock to leave the Kims' hideaway that their fortunes began to take a turn for the worse.
What began as a talisman becomes a cursed object. 
6. Rich holiday vs. poor holiday
Without leaving the matter of the Kim rock entirely, have you noticed what happened to the rock the morning we first see the Park house? Mrs. Park's first appearance is unforgettable: she spends the morning in the garden sleeping it off in the sun. At that very moment, in the Kim residence, the housewife is busy with much more important tasks: polishing (squatting and with a tiny brush) the lucky rock that has just entered her home.
It's a very simple detail that perfectly encapsulates the different mindsets and ways of functioning of the two families. Before leaving for his job interview, the mother wishes her son good luck, something that subtly contrasts with the first thing we see upon entering the Park home: framed diplomas and publications hanging on the wall.
The Kims (mainly the head of the family) pin their hopes of prosperity on the randomness of their fortune ("Do you have a plan?"), while the Parks (again, the family man) do something about it. Leaving aside the obvious issue of social inequality and barriers to educational access, mentalities are what they are.
7. Rich street vs poor street
The contrast between different economic levels within families is a constant theme in Parasite . Sometimes it's obvious, and other times the juxtaposition is more subtly hidden. Consider the Kim family eating in the drivers' cafeteria or the stark contrast between the claustrophobic confines of the basement apartment and the spacious rooms of the Park family residence.
In Postposmo we are left with the striking comparison between the streets surrounding each house. It is of singular simplicity and aesthetic value. In la calle rica, again, the camera game contributes substantially to the task of showing how the son is entering a singular world located in the heights and totally foreign to himas tiny as it is.
8. What you see from the sofa
The opening shot of a film is always of extraordinary importance. Its role is to act as a condensing force, summarizing the very meaning of the entire film in a single frame (more information on the importance of the opening shot in this brilliant video essay ).
Ok, we have said that we were left with a single contrast, but in reality there are two. The first shot of Parasites is of unparalleled strength. Sometimes the views of a house are everything. This is one of those occasions. Especially if we compare the view of the Kims with the perspective from the sofa that the Park residence has.
9. The altar
The altar of our friend (of which it is not necessary to reveal too much) has several striking elements. In addition to being done based on cans of preserves from all over the world (including La Sevillana olives), there are a good number of illustrious personalities: Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, and Mr. Park himself. RESPECT!
10. ¿Storyboards or sleeves?
Finally, a curious detail about the working methods of Parasite director Bong Joong-ho. Part of the reason for his meticulous storytelling can be traced back to his storyboards . Steven Yeun, an actor who worked with Bong Joong-ho on his previous film, Okja , highlighted the director's artistic and expressive skills in an interview: "He gave us storyboards that were like bound books. They looked like manga, like, 'Oh, so this is the movie.'"
According to Vulture , Bong Joon-ho drew every single scene in Parasite and Memories of Murder . The artwork is so striking that a special hardcover edition, consisting of two books and totaling 448 pages, has just been released in South Korea.
When success strikes, you have to milk the cow well.
