Parasite’s history-making Oscar wins were a foregone conclusion, if its poster is anything to go by.
Bong Joon-ho’s ‘unstoppably fierce tragicomedy’ shook the world in the fallout of its game-changing Academy Award sweep, becoming the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, along with three other awards.
It was easily the best film out of all the nominees, and it seems like the creative forces behind the film’s promotional art were quite confident in its chances – even hiding an Oscar in a poster for the movie.
Parasite follows the confluence of the Kims – a lower-class, basement apartment-dwelling family of fiercely quick-witted charlatans – with upper-class family the Parks, who live in a glass, grass and art deco paradise in Seoul’s most beautiful home.
Marking the film’s arrival in the UK, distributor Curzon Artificial Eye teamed up with illustrators La Boca to create a sublimely detailed, quirky, ornate landscape of the Upstairs, Downstairs mayhem within.
It’s sprinkled with key moments from the movie (which I won’t spoil) – however, can you spot the Academy Award? Have a good look, let your eye dangle around the poster.
Check it out:
Still struggling? Well, if you direct your sight to the left-hand side’s middle image, you can see a gold statuette under the coffee table.
Fans of the film have been pointing it out on Twitter recently, with one writing: ‘All this time the Parasite poster had an Oscar hidden under a table and now it won four Oscars like if this isn’t some crazy fortunetelling shit I don’t know what is.’
Along with Best Picture, Bong also took home the awards for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film.
In his acceptance speech, Bong praised his fellow filmmakers, saying:
After winning Best International Feature, I thought I was done for the day and was ready to relax. Thank you so much. When I was young and studying cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart which is ‘the most personal is the most creative’.
When I was in school, I studied Martin Scorsese’s films. Just to be nominated was a huge honour. I never thought I would win. When people in the US were not familiar with my film, Quentin always put my films on his list. He’s here. Thank you so much.
In UNILAD‘s review, we called the film ‘cinema of the highest form. No headline will ever convey the power of Parasite – it’s a masterpiece that has to be seen to be believed’.
Parasite is in UK cinemas now.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via story@unilad.com
After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.