PARASITE: HOW TO WRITE AN ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Meet an Oscar combination
It’s not exaggerated to say that Parasite has become one of those films that have and will make history. Let’s recap about its achievements. 100% South Korean movie and the first non-English language film that has managed to win the Oscar for best picture amongst other of the three main Oscar categories: best original screenplay, best director and best international feature. The first non-English language film to take the top prize for best performance by a cast at the SAG Awards, Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Golden Palm at Cannes where everything began. Whoever tells you that “Parasite is not such a deal” has no idea what he’s talking about.
While it’s true that winning prizes doesn’t necessarily mean anything when so many experts have the same opinion you cannot ignore them. Quality is not subjective but the challenge is to find objectivity. Parasite is one of those films that when you watch it in the cinema you feel you’re watching something unique and completely original. Thanks to Parasite, new original movies that will make history will be created.
Praises aside, what made Parasite the best original screenplay? This is the big challenge that many screenwriters daily face. How do I make my screenplay stand out from the rest? What makes original a script? Parasite is the perfect example to show you which are the elements of an original screenplay. If you haven’t watched the film yet, stop reading and come back when you have. We don’t want you to spoil your experience.
APPROPRIATE USE OF THE GENRE
This is the most remarkable element of the film that makes all its other elements come to life and make the film grow. Many writers don’t give enough importance to genre expectations. Some even fall in the false conviction that mixing very different genres will result in something unique and forget to use it in the right way. Obviously, the result is catastrophic.
Parasite is a film that mixes black comedy with drama, thriller and even horror. But it’s not only the mix of genres that makes the film original but the use of them. When we begin watching Parasite, anyone could think that it’s a comedy film. Watching how, little by little, the Kim family manages to infiltrate in the Park’s house as employees make us connect with the film from minute one. After all, everybody likes laughing at the rich.
Once the Kim family has literally taken over the house and we’re enjoying their victory, the bell rings. And we get tenser, who will it be? Welcome to the thriller. Everything starts to accelerate. Suddenly, the basement shows up and the viewer asks himself: what the hell am I looking at? The pace goes faster, bumping into horror movie scenes and reaching its highest point with a drama. All that sketched in broad strokes.
What is very important to understand about Parasite is that the mix of genres establishes the pace and structure of the script boosting the plot. Why he uses each genre when he uses it is what creates the audience’s emotions. In short, the appearance and use of each genre have a meaning and a reason for being.
UNIVERSAL MESSAGE
A great film makes us think. It’s clear that Parasite criticizes the difference between classes, especially in Korea where capitalism is savage and differences between poor and rich people are huge. This is constantly shown in the movie, but careful here, because although is a powerful message this is not what makes it original.
The title is not for free. It’s a challenge to the viewer who wonders who the parasites in the movie are. Is it the poor, who rip off and take advantage of the rich? Or is it the wealthy, who have all kind of facilities thanks to the working class? And in reality, they are all and none of them, however, we can’t stop thinking about it.
Bong Joon-ho, was inspired by his own personal experiences. When he was young, he also worked as a teacher for a rich family in South Korea. In an interview, he mentioned that he felt like an intruder for not belonging to the same world of the family he worked for. Well, here’s Bong Joon-ho’s greatest trick: he writes about a concrete reality to give it a universal meaning. The director gathers his own experiences and the reality he knows in South Korea and, although this reality is completely different from the occidental culture, he makes everyone feel identified with the message.
Parasite talks about universal concepts such as family, dreams and life contradictions. The last scene of the film is as great as it is devastating. It shows Ki-woo’s desire of becoming rich and buying the house to free his dad. For a moment we think “does he really make it?” As it is a film, we see it viable. However, Bong Joon-ho slaps us in our face and gives us that last scene where we find that Ki-woo is in the same situation as the beginning of the movie but worse. Life itself.
Basically, what Bong Joon-hoo is doing in Parasite is saying “I’m going to explain you something on another language and you’re still going to understand it”. Is there anything more original than that?
UNPREDICTABLE
Going to the cinema to watch Parasite is a whole experience. Laughter, exclamations, and screams are very common. The film catches everyone off the guard and there is where you actually realize it. The plot is so surreal but at the same time so tremendously plausible that you’re not even able to guess what’s going to happen.
Let’s go back to the scene where the Kim’s have taken over the house and the viewer enjoys the triumph. We know that something is going to go wrong but we don’t know how or when. The bell rings, the former maid has arrived. Page 71 of 141 pages of script, right at the midpoint. Here everybody believes that they will get caught or blackmailed somehow by her. It’s a dynamic that many films follow but Parasite goes further. It introduces a brand new element, the basement, that was almost impossible to predict. Moreover, it introduces a new character and conflict. Yeah, it’s crazy but it’s not only plausible but it transforms the movie in a completely different one.
From that moment on, things just go from bad to worse and the viewer is vigilant and aware of an imminent tragedy. Parasite plays with suspense and surprise, places some elements to mislead us and radically twists them. For example, in the middle of all the basement mess the Park’s family call to tell them they’re coming back home. This is something that the viewer knew will happen sooner or later but now it has the basement added problem. Circumstances have changed. Once our main characters have managed to escape from hell without being discovered and they come back to their real home, they find out that their house is flooded due to the heavy rains. Another new dramatic element that boosts the subsequent events. The pot is already boiling and we don’t know when or how will explode.
Writing an unpredictable script is very complicated because we all have references and structures established in our subconscious. It’s easy to base your work on them without acknowledging and end up writing something extremely predictable. Another thing pretty common is ending up doing something so unpredictable that it has no sense at all. The key is balance. Use your references but do not rely exclusively on them, introduce new elements and find them a real meaning within your story’s framework. And, above all, make surprises add and activate your story.
CHARACTERS AT THE PLOT SERVICE
Besides creating consistent and distinctive characters, in Parasite, it was equally important to develop families as collectives. Bon Joon-ho creates two families with opposite profiles: one poor but smart and the other one rich but very naïve. If the main message is the difference between classes, this difference must be evident.
One of the best scenes, when we meet the Kim family, is when all of the members are assembling pizza boxes. The fumigator passes and the father decides to keep the windows open so they can have free fumigation. In a very short time, it introduces the family and their situation.
The first time we’re introduced to the Park family is through Ki-woo’s first visit to the house. From the very first moment, the house contrasts with what we could have seen until then and it even gives the feeling that Ki-woo is given a few minutes to introduce himself to the house. It’s then when Mrs Park arrives and it’s her who explain to us how her family is. Emphasize that she does not only explain to us but she shows us through her attitude. Later on, this is reinforced by the arrival of Mr Park when we realize the excessive attention that he receives from all his family. After all, it’s him who brings the money home.
The differences between both families are interiorized inside each one of the characters and all of them answer to them. During the whole script, the differences are subtly introduced even in a symbolic way. For example, Mrs Park defines the rain as a blessing while for the Kim family it becomes the total destruction of their house. Other ones are more obvious like the popular “smell of poor people”.
One of the things that mostly connect these two families is that they are as they are due to circumstances of life. Their situation is inevitable, they were born where they were born and they’re not guilty of that. For that reason, the audience ends up sympathising with all the characters. Who doesn’t find Mrs Park adorable? Did anyone cheer Mr Kim to “kill the rich”? The naivety of the Park family is what makes us sympathise with them as well as the poverty of the Kim’s. Likewise, the Park’s wealth drives us away from the family and the cleverness that the Kim’s use to rip off the Park’s ends up taking us away too. They feed each other as real parasites.
SPECIAL
Something that Parasite does really well is being special without being “especially special”. That is to say that it’s a pretty mainstream movie that could appeal to both wide audiences and film experts. It’s not a Roma, Moonlight or even Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where the comments between experts and the generic public differ. It’s not a slow movie (something unforgivable for the mass) or requires a different type of sight. It’s a movie for all audiences that, however, could be classified as auteur cinema.
Thanks to its universal message, Parasite has become a popular film. But also thanks to all those elements and narrative details that make it unique. From the stone that Min gives to Ki-woo to the drunk who urinates in front of Kim’s home, the movie is made up of metaphors, symbolism and scenes that give that touch of rareness to the film that makes it special.
Writing an original script is one of the biggest and complicated puzzles that you will ever do. It requires talent, cunning and a lot of patience to make all the elements fit together. But it’s possible, you don’t have to be afraid of it.
We must start to understand that writing an original script doesn’t mean to create something that no one has never done before, that’s almost impossible, don’t try to do weird mixtures because you’ll fail. When a script is called “original”, we mean that a screenwriter has combined several existing ideas in a certain way creating something completely different. It’s not something unachievable but it requires hard work and watching so many different films. In the end, an original script boosts the creation of more original scripts. As Bong Joon-ho said during the Oscars celebration “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films” and that applies not only to subtitles but to every kind of barriers such as genre, theme or even the cast.
