Writer-director Bong Joon Ho is a master: from black comedy or social satire to suspenseful mystery or sci-fi action thrillers, his films transcend genre. Under layers of nuanced absurdity and sharp social critique is a deep sympathy for those who suffer. His critically acclaimed works, including Mother, Snowpiercer, and Okja, are spectacularly produced, provocative, and emotional, carrying ominous portents about the future peppered with laughter and moments of joy. Bong Joon Ho recently won the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or for his latest feature, Parasite (2019). The film has since set box office records, grossing over $100 million globally, has been nominated for six Oscar awards, and has been heralded as the best reviewed film of the year.
A partial retrospective of his breakthrough works, including the films listed above, precedes the Dialogue. Find the schedule and ticketing details online at walkerart.org/cinema.
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New York Times on Bong Joon Ho
Varietyinterview
Schedule of Events
*Oscar nominated*
Parasite
Friday, January 31, 7 pm
$10 ($8 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
“It all came to me, and I wrote like it was a hurricane.”—Bong Joon Ho
Meet the Park Family: the picture of aspirational wealth. And the Kim Family, rich in street smarts but not much else. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kims sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by college-aged Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as tutor and art therapist to the Parks. Soon, a symbiotic relationship forms between the two families. The Kims provide “indispensable” luxury services while the Parks obliviously bankroll their entire household. When a parasitic interloper threatens the Kims’ newfound comfort, a savage, an underhanded battle for dominance breaks out, threatening to destroy the fragile ecosystem between the two families. By turns darkly hilarious and heart-wrenching, Parasite showcases a modern master at the top of his game. —Neon Pictures
Winner of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or. 2019, South Korea, DCP, in Korean with English subtitles, 131 min.
View Trailer
New York Times review
LA Times on Parasite’s six Oscar nominations
Mother
Tuesday, February 4, 7 pm
$10 ($8 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
Bong Joon Ho’s international breakthrough Mother is a Hitchcockian thriller filled with social tragedy and black comedy. The story follows an aging acupuncturist who takes desperate measures to protect her slow-witted, forgetful son when he is accused of murder. Lurking behind the scenes of the inept criminal investigation and following the clues left behind with maternal passion, the doting mother takes justice into her own hands. The mystery unfolds in a quiet town filled with characters whose slow, sad lives are peppered with buffoonery as well as absurdist, random acts of violence. Mother premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. 2009, South Korea, 35 mm, in Korean with English subtitles, 129 min.
View Trailer
Film Comment review
Okja
Wednesday, February 5, 7 pm
$10 ($8 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
Tilda Swinton plays powerful CEO Lucy Mirando, righting the wrongs of her industrialist father to produce new food for a new era, the ultimate super pig. Okja is one of these creatures—engineered to solve humanity’s food shortage and environmental crisis. The gentle, hippo-like beast is raised in the mountains of South Korea by a young girl, who is blissfully unaware of the Mirando corporation’s evil designs. But the Mirando corporation is just as unaware of the extreme passion the girl has for Okja and the lengths she will go to protect her. Bong Joon Ho’s global sci-fi story uses spectacular digital effects and puppet animation to portray the desperate struggle of girl and beast to survive against the all-powerful corporation. 2017, DCP, in English and Korean with English subtitles, 120 min.
View Trailer
Rolling Stone review
Snowpiercer
Tuesday, February 11, 7 pm
$10 ($8 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
Bong Joon Ho’s steampunk post-apocalypse thriller is set in the future after a climate-change experiment gone catastrophically wrong has destroyed all livable habitats. The survivors exist on Snowpiercer, a high-tech train circling the earth in perpetual motion. The remnants of humanity are divided economically—the lower-classes doomed to grim conditions in the back of the train. When the heroic rebels revolt their way to the front, they find the upper classes enjoying unbelievable luxuries at their expense. The epic dystopian sci-fi, based on a French graphic novel, is Bong Joon Ho’s first English language feature with a cast that includes Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, and Tilda Swinton as well as Bong’s longtime collaborators Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung. 2013, South Korea, DCP, 126 min.
View Trailer
The Guardian review
*SOLD OUT*
Walker Dialogue: Bong Joon Ho with Scott Foundas
Wednesday, February 12, 8 pm
$15 ($12 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Join director Bong Joon Ho with Scott Foundas for a conversation about his award-winning work and international film career. Foundas, film acquisitions and development executive at Amazon Studios, was previously a programmer at the New York Film Festival and a chief film critic for Variety.