‘Parasite’ Review: Bong Joon-Ho’s Revenge Of The Underclass

You know you are watching a film from a master perfectionist when everything is seamlessly interconnected and plausible no matter how improbable and far-fetched it could have been. In PARASITE, South Korean auteur filmmaker Bong Joon-ho has just done that. Having just won the Cannes Palm d’Or and the Sydney Film Prize, this dark satire of social class inequity, and the ensuing struggles and envy that go with this affliction, is both a pressing statement of curdling social unrest in South Korea as well as an entertaining escapist piece of work.

In an interview at Cannes, Bong mentions about the film, “While they are laughing, I want the audience to be hit by a hidden blade behind their pocket when they’re not expecting it.” In his last Korean production MOTHER, there were more gasps than laughs, and yet that last shot of a car trailing blood along the highway did feel like an indelible slash on your consciousness. For all its light, funny moments, PARASITE is no different from this. It misleadingly lets you enjoy the comedy of pairing together two unlikely families from opposing socio-economic spectrums of Korean society until you get violently assaulted Haneke-style in the end.

A downtrodden Korean family of four is living in a cluttered, run-down basement level apartment, with an unsightly street-level view of drunken men urinating. Its patriarch Ki-taek (Bong-regular Song Kang-ho), his wife Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin), son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) and daughter Ki-jung (Park So-dam) make do with a joint family effort of folding cardboard pizza boxes and stealing free wifi signals.

With a recommendation from his friend, Ki-woo lands a job as a private tutor for Da-hye (Jung Ziso), the high-school daughter of the well-off Mr. Park (Lee Sun-kyun) and his stylish yet gullible wife Yeon-kyo (Cho Yeo-jeong). Thanks to his master forger sister Ki-jung, he presents a fake degree, and upon settling in, he realises the possible job opportunities this can bring to his slightly nefarious family. He starts by getting Da-hye’s artistically gifted little brother Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun) an unconventional art tutor, a college acquaintance named “Jessica” and impersonated by his multi-talented sibling Ki-jung.  One by one, with new identities, the family moves in, with Ki-taek becoming the family driver and Chung-sook replacing the loyal, live-in housekeeper Moon-kwang (Lee Jung-eun).

There is no doubt who the gisaengchung is in this film. There is a surreal lightness to the treatment of the encroachment. As each family member moves in, it just feels like harmless opportunism, no envy and definitely no rage. It is a testament to the very fluid screenplay of Bong and co-writer Han Jin Won and Bong’s mastery of motivations that this innocent leeching smoothly and believably metamorphoses into treacherous brutality.

A study in contrast is crucial to understanding the disparity of the situation. The Park’s family modern fortress-style granite mansion is an architect’s creation, with a glassed view of a manicured garden, and with a grocery-style pantry, complete with clear jars of preserved fruit-flavoured water.  Welcome to pristine moneyed minimalist living, compared to the clutter and dingy basement existence of Ki-taek’s family. The stratification here is vertical, both metaphorically and physically. The Park’s residence is high on a quiet top of the hills, while Ki-taek’s abode is on a noisily busy, lower-lying area. When that incessant rain in the film turned into that great flood of misery, it wiped out not only Ki-taek’s family home and belongings, it also demolished their comfortability and contentment zone. It is at this point when they realise that when the going gets tough, it is them, the poor, who has to suffer.

The best part of the film happens midway up to the final act when that distinctive Bong style of viciously dark suspenseful storytelling takes over. The debilitating violence in this film’s climax did not come from anywhere. It is finally fueled by rage from motivations of revenge, resentment, and despair. When small things like one’s repugnant smell or big things like the killing of a loved one give way to raging anger, all in Bong’s well-timed, well-choreographed, and well-executed command.

Social disparity and class envy have been common themes from South Korea as of late. There was the multi-award winning MICROHABITAT by Jeon Go-woon as well as the FIPRESCI prize-winning Cannes contender BURNING by Lee Chang-dong. Even last year’s Cannes Palm d’Or winner, the Japanese SHOPLIFTERS from Hirokazu Kore-eda similarly explored poverty living in a neighbouring advanced economy.

Bong’s social critique during the film’s ending is as tragic as the violence before it. It not only hammers in the widening gap between contemporary society’s rich and poor, it also kills any form of aspiration the latter might have to overcome it.

PARASITE (5/5)