FILM: Parasite

The Korean film Parasite won the Palm d’Or at Cannes this year, and has been raved about by critics. It was definitely not what we expected, though I’m not sure what I did expect. It’s hard to even categorize. While it has a few moments of suspense and even horror, it’s not a horror suspense film. In fact most of it deals fairly lightly and deftly with some heavy social commentary about the widening chasm between rich and poor, and its thoroughly unexpected ending is a strangely beautiful alloy of hope (wistful? misplaced? persistent?) and irony. The most comparable films I can think of are last year’s Shoplifters (a beautiful Japanese film also about a sympathetic family near the bottom rung of society doing what they can to scrape by) and Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. One could say that Parasite is like Roma, but with more plot and less brooding. (HG Wells’ The Time Machine also comes to mind, not for the science fiction but for the social critique.) In the opening scene, we meet the Kim family in their basement apartment with a transom window looking onto a gritty street, and the young adult son and daughter trying to maneuver their phones to just the right corner of the ceiling where they can get a bit of free wifi. Soon after, we meet the Park family, living in luxury behind a gate, in a house designed by a renowned architect with a light and spacious yard. When the Kims insinuate themselves into the lives of the Park family in various positions of service, it sets off a chain of very unexpected events that serve to illuminate the contrast in their social positions. These contrasts are beautifully underscored with cinematic artistry: the spaciousness and lightness of the Parks’ house emphasized with long / wide angles and tracking shots, while tight strained angles show the cramped and dingy nature of the Kims’ basement. Director Bong Joon-Ho created a very visual verticality to the social dynamic, most fulsomely brought out when some of the Kims make a dash in the rain from the Park house to their own home, and it’s all down, down, down. As their near their home, we get a high downward shot on their street, half obscured by a rat’s nest of exposed utility wires (probably half bootlegged), and the muddy rainwater gushing down the street toward their apartment, below grade at the bottom of the slope. The claustrophobia of their apartment is ratcheted way up when it is literally filling up with sewage overflow, and they struggle to grab a few key possessions before bailing out to a shelter. Meanwhile this same rainstorm that is catastrophic to the poorer part of town below is for the Parks just an inconvenience that has spoiled plans for a birthday camping trip. The Parks live their lives on a cloud of effortlessness. As mother Kim observes, their lives are full of creases and wrinkles, but when you have money like the Parks do, money is like an iron that smooths out all the creases. Mr. Park walks through his house and up his stairs, and the lights turn on as he approaches and off as he goes past. He doesn’t understand how this happens, and he doesn’t even really think about it. The Parks give no thought to a lot of things that have to happen to make their lives just work so smoothly. The structures that the great architect has designed into the foundation of their house are long forgotten and taken for granted. But like an iceberg, it’s the submerged part that you can’t see that proves the most dangerous. I came away from this film haunted by the allegory and the poetic imagery of social divides; George just said he’s going to have nightmares. While this isn’t exactly Roma, I think Roma is a good yardstick. If you’re the sort who loved Roma, then I think you’d appreciate this.