Four carefully crafted sets give the appearance of a luxurious labyrinth of burnished wood and crystal-clear glass – a perfect location for menace and suburban depravity
Pretty much every actor in Parasite puts in a note-perfect performance, but as the film unfolds there’s no doubting the star of the show. The house where the bulk of the action takes place – a gloriously opulent modernist building, shot to ensure no gleaming surface or painstaking furniture arrangement goes unnoticed – is truly a thing of wonder. Bong Joon-ho’s big-screen creations to date include amphibious man-eating mutants and genetically modified superpigs, but this pad might just top the lot.
Within the film, this is the home of the well-to-do Park family and brainchild of a hotshot celebrity architect; in real life, it’s the result of four carefully crafted sets and lots of clever editing. The upshot is the appearance of a luxurious labyrinth of burnished wood and crystal-clear glass, all towering tastefully over the best-kept lawn this side of Wisteria Lane. Bong’s film imparts many vital lessons, and chief among them is that there are few things in life more pleasing than a perfectly positioned coffee table.