'Parasite' review: Landing step for satire, a new level of dark comedy thriller

Movie: Parasite

Genre: Dark comedy thriller

Director: Bong Joon Ho

Language: Korean

Cast: Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Jo, Woo-sik Choi, So-dam Park, Jeong-eun Lee, Hye-jin Jang

As complete as a circle, as twisted as Ouroboros – watching Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite can easily leave one satisfied with closure, yet still wondering about the emptiness inside.

Bong Joon Ho’s films tend to turn come back to where it all began, only nothing is the same anymore. 

Parasite is a satire on the societal hierarchies, brutally conveying a global reality. The plot revolves around two families – the Kim family which is on the wallaby, and the Park family – the wealthy upper-class family. 

The twist is another couple that is hiding from loan sharks in a secret ‘hideout’.

The ‘parasite’ is the many levels of the class system. 

The Bible says that the root of all evil is the absence of empathy, and this is the core of Parasite.

‘Is this a metaphor?’

The Kim family, living in a semi-basement of a café, is so impoverished that internet is an unaffordable luxury.

When the neighbourhood shuts their doors to block the insect fumigation, the father - Kim Ki-taek (played by Kang-ho Song) wants to keep the window open so the house can get disinfected for free. As the family coughs and struggles to breathe as they put together a bunch of pizza boxes amid the gas, Ki-taek continues to work as if his life depends on packing the boxes. Truth be told, it did matter so much for the family.

The Park family lives on the more affluent side of the city. The very introduction of Park Yeon-kyo (Cho Yeo Jeong) – the lady of the house – is of her sleeping carefree on the lawn as the help wakes her up.

The between the two households contrast reveals itself here: a shady semi-basement and narrow streets to a bright, lavish residence and wide streets. 

The rich enjoy the rain with no worry, while the poor try to find anything salvageable in their flooded homes.

What puts it all together is money. What destroys it all is social scale.

Stairway to heaven or highway to hell?

Things begin to change for the Kim family when Kim Ki-woo (Choi Woo Shik), the son lands a job via a friend as an English tutor for the daughter Park Da-hye (Jung Ji-so) of Park family. The friend also hands him a decorative stone, which Ki-woo latches on to immediately.

Tutoring at the Park family’s home, he comes up with an intelligible idea to get his sister, Kim Ki-jung (Park So Dam) and eventually the entire family into working there, but without revealing that they all belong to each other.

The ‘gullible’ Park Yeon-kyo falls almost right into every trap set by them and eventually fires even the trusted help Moon-gwang (Lee Jung Eun), who was a part of the house since its previous owner. The help is now replaced by the mother.

Nobody suspects anything except for Park’s son, who figures out that ‘they all smell the same’.

Life seems peaceful for both the family until Moon-gwang returns to pick up something she left at the house and events begin to take a quantum jump from there.

Something smells fishy:

Park’s son, the youngest of the two kids, is almost the only observant character in the story. The young Da-song (Jung Hyeon) points out that ‘they all smell that same’ and even figures out Morse code with the twitch of the main stairway light.

The staircase is the metaphorical string that ties together all the smaller metaphors like smell, light, identities and perspectives.

Kim family is struggling to climb up the, while constantly hiding their true selves.

The Park family look down and never can accept them to be a part of their own, even as they have bestowed their blind trust upon them.

The biggest asset of the movie is the music. The acoustics hit the nail on the head, be it the soundtrack for adding hot sauce on a pizza or an impromptu birthday party orchestra, the mood is as set as the beat.

Why should you watch Parasite?

It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility; they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.  - Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre.

Human race’s survival instincts are what has brought it to be one of the most powerful beings. Still, when it is one’s dignity that is in question, logic and rationality tend to even leave the metaphorical backseat.

Parasite may not be the dark humour we have come across in Indian cinema, but it does elevate the standard for Hollywood.

It is certainly hard to overlook the battles faced by all the characters and find it funny when Kim Ki-jung browses through her phone as the house is drowning in sewage water, but that doesn’t diminish the humour’s quality.

That is Bong Hoon Jo’s play with the audience’s perspective. 

Even in his previous movies like The Host, he tried to push the envelope of comedy entwined with a social message with every new venture.

The movie has won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is nominated for the Oscars in 6 categories, including Best Picture.

So, it has received the recognition it needs, Bong Joon Ho has much more to offer. Even though Parasite is lauded as his crowning achievement, he still has a few more stories up his sleeve to tell.