Bong seduces us with slapstick and warm character comedy.

savagely, darkly and hilariously dissects this trope.

Parasite is a portrait of two very different South Korean families. In the cramped and twisting streets of a city’s old quarter, the Kims (mum, dad, one son, one daughter) live in a dank semi-basement. Looking for work, they make a tiny living by folding pizza boxes for a nearby store, dreaming of wild schemes to get back on their feet.

Across town, the Parks (ditto) occupy a massive concrete pile, set in a vast, walled garden. Huge, spacious rooms are flooded with light. The Kims’ teenage son talks his way into a job tutoring the Parks’ daughter in English.

He soon finds work for his sister as an art teacher to the Parks’ young son. Mum and dad plot to follow their children, finding their own places inside the Parks’ charmed existence.

As the Kims relax into their new environment and the Parks’ obliviousness to the home-invasion around them starts to recede, Parasite makes a rapid move from social satire to violent farce, as we discover the Kims might not have been the first predators to have the Parks in their sights.

Like a Michael Haneke film, but with a sense of fun Bong seduces us with slapstick and warm character comedy, only to pull back the curtain on real menace and malevolence. Then there’s another bait-and-switch, to an ending that descends into murderous chaos, but which never seems tacked-on or gratuitous.

Bong makes dementedness seem not just credible, but probably inevitable. I don’t know enough to tell you for sure that there is also a satire of the relationship beneath North and South Korea at play here but I’ll assume there is – and it’s pretty terrifying.

Parasite is a masterclass in writing and narrative control. That a film as funny, subversive and relevant as this can still win the Cannes Palme d’Or makes me very happy indeed.

If I see a film I admire more this year, I will be amazed.