Garnering an amazing 99% on Rotten Tomato, Parasite is a brilliantly layered story that tackles social themes that are often overlooked in modern society but are most probably the main cause of a lot of the issues we have as a society. Director Bong Joon Ho creates a story about how the underprivileged Kim family desire to be like the upper-class Park family. The Kim family try to insert themselves in the Park’s lives by displacing their current staff and forming a somewhat symbiotic relationship with them.
"Thrillingly played by a flawless ensemble cast... it’s a tragicomic masterclass that will get under your skin and eat away at your cinematic soul" - The Guardian
Parasite is two films in one. The first film is about how the Kim’s conned their way into the Park’s house, having no regard with whom they displace to get to this place. The second film is basically what one could see as karma, as it is about how both the Kim’s and Park’s lives fall apart, because of their views of class and money.
The reason why I believe Parasite to be a film worthy of the Oscars’ it has won is that it is perfect in about every way. The dialogue is magnificently crafted, each beautiful shot that was selected was selected to further the narrative and the world of story and also each set element seems to convey the juxtaposition of the Kim’s and the Park’s. There wasn’t a single frame of footage that didn’t end up revealing either the struggles that the Kim’s have to go through to survive or how the Park’s sense of entitlement blinded them to how other people have to struggle to have what they have, which is comfort.
Parasite makes use of stairs to separate the different classes that are represented in this film. Whenever a person is about to “climb up” and enter a new class we can see that character physically climbing stairs to get there. When they about to have a supposed fall-from-grace we can see them descending the very same staircase. This film tactic is called poetic amplification. Amplification refers to a literary practise wherein the writer embellishes the sentence by adding more information to it to increase its worth and understanding. In film studies, however, this would be when the writer adds scenes or shots that imbues the film with a deeper meaning, without taking away from the story.
One of my favourite lines in the film is when Chung-sook, the mother of the Kim family said: “Heck if I was as rich Yeo-gyo (The mother of the Park family) I would be nice to”. This speaks to how the underprivileged view money as a key to happiness, but what they don’t know is that with privilege comes a sense of dependence and naivety to what is going on in the world around you. This statement is perfectly illustrated in the scene where Yeo-gyo is talking to her driver Kim Ki-taek (The father of the Kim family) about how the rain has derailed her son’s birthday camping trip, not knowing that Ki-taek and his family have just had their house flooded by the very same rains, forcing them to sleep in a gym for the night.
"You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan at all. With no plan, nothing can go wrong”- Kim Ki-taek Parasite
For me, this film is a masterclass on how to make films that are relevant to the zeitgeist of our times. It’s because of films like this that I watch films from foreign lands. We need to broaden our perspective and broaden our range of understanding. I’ll end this off with a quote from the director of Parasite upon receiving his Oscar.
Comments