Quarantine Battles: 2019 rematch

Did I need to watch Parasite for a third time within the first year that I'd seen it? That anyone had seen it, since the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, at which it debuted and claimed top prize, didn't start until last May 14th, with Parasite's first showing coming a week after that?

Probably not. But it sure was fun.

Even though Parasite is no longer "my movie" -- an honor I could claim for a while, as I was the first person I knew who had seen it, back at the end of last June, three months before it debuted in the U.S. -- it's still my #1 of last year, and will always, therefore, by one of "my" movies. In that year's time, Parasite has taken the world by storm, most recently (but probably least consequentially) capping off its award win streak by taking home top honors in the 64-movie Filmspotting Madness best of the 2010s tournament, where it beat Mad Max: Fury Road as the best of the decade according to the podcast's listeners.

Even with all that, though, recently I haven't been sure if it was even my best of last year. Which makes a good segue into the three reasons I watched Parasite with my wife on Sunday night:

1) It was for free on our Australian streaming service Stan, which was too much to resist;

2) My second viewing was on a plane, and I had to miss the last ten minutes due to the fact that we were disembarking; and

3) I thought it was time to decide whether or not it was actually better than Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

And so, welcome to my first (and possibly last) installment in Quarantine Battles, where I watch two movies in close succession that have an equal claim to some particular honor, to see which one comes out on top.

Parasite may have bested Mad Max: Fury Road in the Filmspotting tournament, but in my own personal rankings for 2019, it bested Portrait of a Lady on Fire. My #2 was in a tricky position, though, having been seen by me only two weeks before I closed my list. If it hadn't had such stiff competition on the top, it might have been my #1 -- and might have deserved to scale the heights even with such a formidable opponent.

I actually intended to watch Parasite the previous Sunday, as it would have given me back-to-back viewings on consecutive nights, creating the type of proximity that would have made the movies' merits, both independently and in relation to each other, abundantly clear. That was more or less how I handled the final showdown of my own best of the decade, watching Tangled and Spring Breakers as a double feature on the second-to-last night of last year. But my wife, noticing that I was about to start watching, asked me not to leave her out of the Parasite viewing, which would be her second. I agreed to postpone to her proposed alternative time the following Sunday night.

Whether separated by one night or eight, I think I would have reached the same conclusion, which is:

It's still Parasite.

The last time I watched a movie three times within the first year I'd seen it -- the third time also with my wife -- it was Creed in 2015/2016. In that case I saw it twice a week apart in the theater, my affection still holding strong after the second viewing -- strong enough that it came in only behind Inside Out as my favorite of the year. The third viewing, though, knocked it down a peg. It was once too many in such a short amount of time.

I worried the same might be true of Parasite, even with the compromised second plane viewing. The fact that it wasn't, and that I watched it in a state of perpetual thrills at the wonder of Bong's filmmaking, left little doubt that it was still just a hair better than Portrait.

You should have no doubt that Portrait was still worthy of that #2 spot. I loved watching it again and I think I may have actually cried in one additional spot than I did the first time. C'est magnifique.

I've seen all three of my top three of 2019 in the past month, in fact, with #3 Vivairum in there as well. All still maintain their relative rankings, which I guess is an unsurprising outcome given that it's only been three-and-a-half months since I placed them in their respective spots.

But Parasite ... well, there's the reason it's the most agreed upon best film of the year in as long as I can remember.

I guess I should think of my next possible Quarantine Battle, as it's not cool to introduce a possible recurring feature and then never do it again.

But we got a number of new high-profile cases of coronavirus just in the past few days in Victoria -- some from a school, some from a meat-packing plant -- so something tells me I don't need to hurry.