Parasite: Kimchi Coen Bros with a side of manicured fruit

Ed Hutchinson
Nov 7 · 4 min read

SPOILERS AHEAD

In the early 2000’s I spent a year tutoring in South Korea. Back then, South Korea wasn’t nearly as wealthy as the Park family depicted in Parasite. Most of my clients lived in cookie-cutter apartment buildings with “LG” or “Dae Woo” written on the side of the building. When I would visit the homes of my students, their mothers would set down a plate of carefully sliced fruit in front of us while we worked. Never once did I ever entertain the idea of robbing the family nor did I wonder what secrets they were keeping in their apartment. I was hired to help their children attain a private American education and the families’ dreams rested on their young children’s frail backs. In the world of Director Bong’s film, the children have returned from the west with their Harvard degrees and have bought post-modern houses with sheer walls like castles, and have created their fiats of wealth and isolation. For the lucky in Korea, their investment has paid off — but at what cost? While I was watching Parasite, I realized that during my stay in Korea I had only glimpsed the surface of Korean society and that Director Bong was peeling back the layers for the audience throughout this difficult to define but masterful film.

Parasite is the only South Korean film to ever win the Palm D’or, which is the Cannes equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar, and the fact that this international jury would award a film when they can’t understand the language, and probably aren’t familiar with the actors, speaks volumes. So what is it about this film? To me, it starts with how the story is told. The filmmaker seamlessly presents different genres, beginning with screwball comedy when we meet this family of lovable losers, then quickly shifting to a heist format when the family gets the opportunity to infiltrate a very wealthy family. How the poor family brings each member into the fold is wildly entertaining and masterfully executed. Then, halfway through the movie, the film takes a dark plunge into a literal black hole, and suddenly we are inside a crime thriller that climaxes at the end of the film in horror. Bong Joon Ho has exhibited this ability to jump genres going back to The Host and Mother — and his two more recent films Snowpiercer and Okja — but Parasite incorporates his trademark genre-bending style in the most fluid and entertaining way yet, while still conveying his favorite themes: family, class struggle, and loss. When thinking of Western filmmakers, the closest thing that Parasite reminds me of is the Coen Brothers, especially works like The Big Lebowski and Fargo, where lovable losers get tied up in situations that are at times hilarious and at other times horrific.

Another aspect of the film which holds it together so well and deserves mentioning is the use of architecture. The wealthy family’s home in contrast with the poor Kim family’s home frames a lot of the story and provides a visual context to the characters’ place in society. Starting with the poor family’s sub-basement home, which looks out onto a dirty alleyway of Seoul, it shows you that they are barely keeping their heads above ground. When the Kims arrive at the Park family home, which is elevated and situated above sheer walls, it’s as if they have reached Mount Olympus, or at the very least Architectural Digest. Then, when the bunker is revealed and the characters go below ground, the film likewise tunnels into the depths to which people will go to protect both their families, and their precarious stations in society.

It’s been a few weeks since I saw the film but what makes it stay with me is the ending. The poor family pays a heavy price for their crimes, tragically losing their daughter, who has the most potential, and their father, who is forced to live in exile in the basement as new families come and go into the beautiful home that has become his prison. His son vows to go to college, become rich, and then buy the home himself just so that he can reunite with him, perpetuating the incessant pursuit of wealth that has created this tragedy in the first place. It’s a great ending, and it’s one that leaves a sting similar to the exhale from the last sip of kimchi jigae, or the last shot of soju at the end of a long night.

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