Parasite: The Stairway to Madness

By: Steven Purpura

November 29th 2021

The Kim Family work together folding pizza boxes in order to make a living. Link

Its not often that a foreign movie wins best picture at the Oscars. In fact, it had
never happened before 2019. So, when the Korean film Parasite took home the
award that year, people didn’t really know how to respond. People were upset
that a foreign movie could win such a prestigious American film award, and many
said that the film had no business being nominated in the categories that it was.
It is clear now that those people never got to see how special this film is.
Korean director Bong Joon Ho, who has garnered acclaim previously for his films
Snowpiercer and Okja, has given us a whole new type of movie with this most
recent effort. It is hard to cite other examples of a comedy/thriller film, or at least
ones that were successful, but the director pulls off this feat almost effortlessly.
The film is lean and is ever driven by the marching plot, but still flawlessly
embodies themes of class disparity and social mobility. This is all while we are
mercilessly thrown into a horrific twist halfway through the film which only
draws us in even more. It is as if Bong Joon Ho is expertly directing an orchestra
of chaos into making beautiful and simultaneously bloodcurdling music.
At first, Parasite seems like a playful comedy film that resembles Trading Places,
where the poor envy the rich and so they must try their best to live like them. But
the beauty of this film is not bombarded at first glance, rather its twisted motives
are slowly revealed, and we have no choice but to watch them unfold in front of
our eyes.
The twist is what makes Bong Joon Ho’s latest film so daring. It is a spectacular
example of a film that is unlike anything else in the genre and strikes the perfect
balance between lighthearted comedy and twisted thriller. A film so balanced that
even with its increasingly complicated plot that keeps you guessing, it never
allows itself to get bogged down and continues marching forward.

All this brilliance is embedded within a storyline draws clear parallels to Bong’s
other works, working with themes of class and wealth. Kim Ki Woo (Woo-sik
Choi), is a member of the impoverished Kim family, who live in a basement home
and fold pizza boxes for money. But this does not mean the Kim’s are not
intelligent, rather it is the opposite. With the help of one of Ki Woo’s friends, the
family masterminds and executes a plan to infiltrate the uber-wealthy Park family
by replacing the various workers the family has on their payroll. It is a plot that to
some may scream: “Been there, done that.” But therein lies the rub. The film is a
two hour and twelve-minute subversion of expectations.

The carefully written and executed story is perfectly complemented by the setting
that all these events unfold. The beautiful hilltop modern house which belongs to
the Park family, which strikingly stands out from urban landscape around it.
When we first are presented with the home, the scene is shot as if we have left the
world of the common man and entered a new realm. This is complimented by the
placement of the Kim’s desolate basement home, which is seemingly at the lowest
point in the city.

You can’t help but notice that the Kim family must climb up a steep hill in order
to reach the Park’s home, which only adds to Bong Joon Ho’s clever distancing of
the two social classes within the film. In addition to being a fitting display of
lavish wealth, the Park home also plays a key role in driving the plot, and we are
slowly shown that the house of horrors hides a much darker secret than either
family could ever imagine.

The film was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019, where it was
showered with praise and received the Palme d’Or, the highest prize awarded at
the festival. This brought the film into the eye of the international media, but as is
true with most foreign films, it did not have a large impact on American culture.
This was until the film historically became the first foreign film to win best
picture at the Academy Awards, along with winning five other awards including
Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film.

Bong Joon Ho pictured with the six Oscars he won for his film Parasite. Link

This film is one of those movies that will be referenced and imitated for years to
come, not because of its laundry list of awards, but because it is something new.
It is an experimentation into the idea that a movie can be two things at once. It
brings together genres and themes into a perfectly mixed amalgamation that on
paper seems overwhelming but has produced a sharp dual-edged sword.
So, is this film worth the watch? If the historic awards run and the universal
praise have not already convinced you, then let me. If you love cinema, or love
experiencing something new, or love watching a screen with your jaw agape
trying to comprehend what it is unfolding in front of you, you need to watch this
film. Some might be averse to watching a movie in a foreign language and being
forced to read subtitles, but I argue this only makes the film better. The constant
reading forces you to always be looking at the screen and giving the film you
undivided attention, which is necessary if you truly want to understand every
subtle aspect of this densely packed comedy/thriller masterpiece.

Grade: A+
 Works Cited

Joon Ho, Bong, director. Parasite. CJ Entertainment, 2019

“Parasite” IMDb.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6751668/ Accessed 21 Nov. 2021