Parasite

After premiere’ing at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019, the buzz around Parasite grew exponentially, winning the festival’s highest accolade, the Palme d’Or, followed by a worldwide tour for Korean Director Bong Joon-Ho that culminated almost an entire year later with its Best Picture win at the Oscars in February 2020 – the first for a film not in the English language. A strange fact to point out, perhaps, for an American awards ceremony that has often been dubbed a mere television show grappling for ratings and advertising revenue; and yet precisely therein lies a large part of the triumph.

The conversation around the film continued well beyond the Oscar win. Newspaper and magazine articles had plenty to write about. In December 2020 The Guardian gave it the No.1 slot in its Top 50 UK Film releases. Film buffs and fans produced video essay upon video essay online, breaking down and analysing every fragment of the film’s architecture and artistry, because of how much there is to observe, deconstruct, dissect, explore, and enjoy in this modern tale of class divide.

Stories of class struggle are not new. They are one of classic literature’s bottomless barrels. Go as far back as The Bible, which repeatedly uses as context rich vs. poor to establish tales of conflict and morality. Today, in a world that’s been feeling that strong distinction between the wealthy and the indigent, starting a few years back with the Occupy protests around the world and reaching a strange conclusion with the outcome of the US Presidential Election in 2016, Parasite perhaps provides the kind of catharsis many audiences were looking for.

In contemporary Seoul, when the wealthy Park family have an opening for an English teacher to teach their daughter, the lower-class Kim family take advantage of the opportunity to gradually scheme their way into the Park’s lives. At first, it seems like the Kim’s are simply seizing an opportunity for work and income. But greed takes over, and leads down an unexpected stairwell of depravity, unfortunate circumstance, and self-preservation at all cost.

The film is full of contrasting ideas and tones layered on top of each other, a fine balancing act. Part reflection, part critique. Part drama, part comedy. Part tragedy, but for whom, it’s hard to tell, as none of the characters are written for us to root for. And, there is a gentle sprinkle of horror; not that of a ‘horror movie’, but trepidation at what might unfold, and alarm at the unfolding. Half way through the film, at exactly its mid-point, there is a turn of events so unexpected and so dark – it is easily the year’s greatest “WTF” moment in cinema.

The film is also about social performance and class facades. It reflects on how behaviour dictates whose company we’re allowed to join, regardless whether that behaviour is disingenuous. The house itself is also a facade, hiding something deeper within. If anyone dares compromise the mask we wear, they are a threat to be quashed. Hence, a mindset of “think of us, not of them”, a line one of the character’s utters, takes over.

The title ‘Parasite’ leaves much to be contemplated. Some have said that to varying degrees all the characters are parasitic. I’d like to make another suggestion. I laughed several times during the film, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes wholeheartedly. But I kept coming back to a feeling of hopelessness, because, when you don’t stand with any of the characters, when there is no hero, when everyone is out for themselves, the tragedy of those involved is all-encompassing. In this way, “we’re all in it together”, no matter which social class you come from or happen to be embedded in. The circumstances have to do with the rigid lines drawn between the different families. And that line starts and stops with the individualistic mindset of thinking for yourself first. The film shows the absence of help not only between classes, but between families of the same class. The parasite therefore is the idea of selfishness. We’re all capable of it, regardless of background, post code, or wealth. Where some might argue that such a mindset is the most naturally intuitive manner in which to behave, the film’s climactic scene shows an end result of senseless chaos.

The fact that Parasite won Best Picture at the Oscars, the first in a language other than English, is even more pertinent when considered that the previous year, several bets were placed on Roma winning the position (it lost, to The Green Book). Roma, entirely in Spanish, is also a story of class contrast (though less so about the conflict), at its centre a young maid tending to the needs of a well-off family. It is a much-needed portrait of the lesser-seen people within our communities, the less-acknowledged of our society. A film full of empathy and humanity. And directed by an Oscar favourite, Alfonso Cuaron, who picked up a statuette for Gravity.

Bong Joon-Ho’s surprise at Parasite’s triumph at the Oscars was evident. The same year that Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman was in contention for Best Picture, a movie by an American national treasure, starring some of cinema’s greatest actors, in a quintessentially American film about the history of its mob and the politics of one of its biggest figures. It’s the De Niro, Pacino, and Pesci starrer many had waited for, for the kind of movie they knew will never be made again. As Bong Joon-Ho stood on the stage of the ceremony, he reached out and paid homage to Scorsese, who looked genuinely moved, and the entire auditorium stood up to applaud the legend who had not won that night, but whose work and words had inspired and created the next generation of high calibre filmmakers.