Director Bong Joon-ho, who just made cinema history with the first ever South Korean wins for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and International Film, has always wanted to make a black and white film. He experimented with such a version on 2009’s Mother and does so again with Parasite. We’ll let Director Bong himself explain why:
“Cinema was black and white in the very beginning. There was a time when films were only in black and white, and even throughout the 40s and 60s when color films came into the picture, there were numerous films still in black and white. Black and white is the origin of cinema. … I’m extremely happy to present Parasite in black and white and have it play on the big screen. It will be fascinating to see how the viewing experience changes when an identical film is presented in black and white. … I had many fleeting impressions of this new version, but I do not wish to define them before it is presented. I hope everyone in the audience can compare their own experiences from the color version and find their own path to Parasite in black and white.”
Parasite won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film.