Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite,
which picked up the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, put me in
mind of a trip I made to Seoul, Korea in my long-ago student days. Coming from
Tokyo, where families enjoyed a fairly high standard of living, I was
mesmerized by the differences I found in Seoul. The city seemed vibrant; its swirl
of colors was a welcome change from the much more muted Japanese palette. But
amenities that were common in Japan (and basically obligatory in America) in
the late 1960s seemed far rarer in Seoul. I spent the night in the home of a
schoolgirl my own age, a student at one of Korea’s best universities. Her
father was an architect, and I gathered the family was economically
comfortable. But the tiny kitchen contained – in place of a refrigerator – a
huge jar of kimchee. And there was a fish in the bathtub.
Cut to 2019. Today Seoul (I’m
told) is a high-tech wonderland where everybody owns a smart phone, and pizza
has apparently replaced kimchee as s mealtime staple. Some Koreans, especially
those at the top of tech companies, live very well indeed by anyone’s standards.
But there are also plenty of would-be entrepreneurs, far down on the social
ladder, who are desperately scrambling to get by. It is in the contrast between
Korea’s haves and have-nots that Bong Joon Ho finds his story. Such is the
complexity of Parasite that even its title invites conjecture. Who are
the true parasites in this film? Are they the members of the Kim family who,
having failed at various lowly business ventures, try to rise above their
basement existence by dreaming up jobs for themselves in the household of the
Parks? Or can the Parks themselves be considered parasites, as they drain the
nation dry while pursuing the fabulous lifestyle of the superrich?
The action cuts between the miserable
sub-basement of the Kims, where a heavy rain causes raw sewage to swamp the
cramped living quarters, and the architect-designed
concrete and glass cube in which the Parks live a life totally cut off from the
grime of the city. Partly Bong’s film seems a timely comment on what we’ve come
to call income inequality. But there’s also something almost heroic, and very
funny, about the way the Kims manipulate their social betters, inventing
creative ways to make themselves seem essential to people who have money to
burn. And yet, it would be wrong to romanticize the Kims as “the deserving
poor.” They are not above hurting others of their station to get what they
want, and the result is an unlikely but poetically justified twist that turns
this outrageous comedy into something far different.
There’s so much going on in
this thematically rich film, which comments in passing on Korean politics and
on the passion felt by high-status Koreans for all things western, whether
these be consumer goods or degrees from the University of Illinois. (Even a yen
for things Native American finds its way into the story.) But fundamentally this tale of two households
is an arch comment on how money can’t buy familial love. The wealthy Parks,
mildly discontented with themselves and with each other, aren’t quite clear on
how to raise confident, happy children. The Kims (father, mother, daughter,
son) are scoundrels through and through, but their self-confidence rarely
falters and their loyalty to one another never flags. If it weren’t for that
subterranean secret beneath their employers’ spectacular home, there’s no
telling how far they might be able to rise.
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