The 2019 black comedy thriller, Parasite, won a leading four awards at the 92nd Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. It was the first non-English film to win Best Picture and the first South Korean film to receive Academy Award recognition. Why all of the hype?
It’s masterful film-making, in which every detail is nuanced and intentional. This film is beautiful in its horror, comedic in its tragedy, and universal in its specificity. Director Bong Joon-ho captures the duality of the human condition, while simultaneously convicting the system that disregards it.
When we are first introduced to the working-class Kim family, we literally meet them below the level of the street in their semi-basement apartment. Bong describes the residence in an interview, saying, “You’re still half overground, so there’s this hope and this sense that you still have access to sunlight. And you haven’t completely fallen to the basement yet. It’s this weird mixture of hope and this fear that you can fall even lower.” This motif of physical level to represent status is maintained as we see the son, Kim Ki-Woo, ascend staircase after staircase to the home of the wealthy Park family. On recommendation from a friend, he feigns status as a university student in order to interview for a position as an English tutor. Following his acceptance of the position, Ki-Woo recommends his sister, Ki-Jung, masquerading as an accomplished art school graduate to be an art tutor to the Parks’ other child, who the Parks believe to be troubled. Over time, the Kim children scheme to extract the Parks’ housekeeper and driver, securing employment for their parents as well. This action emphasizes the limited employment opportunities among workers; in this system, the working class cannot make any kind of gain except through someone else’s loss.
Despite the moral duplicitousness of the Kims’ machinations, it’s delightfully satisfying to watch the Kims in action as they hilariously manipulate the naive Park family. The film takes care to emphasize that the Parks are not evil, but merely detached from reality and desperate to hold onto what they believe is necessary to have a comfortable life – portrayed as a life filled with significant indulgence and luxury far, far removed from the living conditions of most of us. They have a vested interest in perpetuating the status quo because their entire existence is predicated on it. Throughout the film, Mr. Park repeatedly references a “line” that the staff in his home must respect; while this “line” refers to an employees’ professional conduct, it is also a means by which the ruling class can maintain their superiority. The working class abides by this division, adhering to the myth that they can one day achieve the same material success of the wealthy. It is this illusion of upward mobility that enables the maintenance of the economic status quo and creates divides among the working class.
The Kims are cunning, capable, and determined people. They are not unlike the Parks, dedicated to their families and improving their quality of life; however, they lack access to the resources to achieve the security and stability necessary to achieve these universally-shared goals. The Kims are virtually powerless (by conventional means) and the fulfillment of their economic needs is in the hands of those who believe they are easily dispensable and replaceable thus subjecting the Kims, and similar working class families, to very precarious circumstances. This system creates inherently toxic, unsustainable relationships and the workers are incentivized to turn on one another in order to survive by seizing whatever opportunities are within their grasp. Through a violent, chaotic climax, the invisible has been made visible, the gradual has become immediate, and it is with a desperate urgency that we are confronted with the realization that the parasite is not the poor siphoning the resources of the rich, but the system that traps, exploits, and dehumanizes all of us.
Parasite is available for streaming on Hulu.
Byline: Harley Winzenried, Spivak Lipton Legal Assistant & Freelance Theatre Practitioner
