1054 Parasite

[therewillbeblus]

[Mr Sausage]

It is incidentally the second Palme winner which has partially invoked the "three unities" construction of drama. The other is Amour by Haneke where he said he was striving for it.

Even just since the new millennium, would 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days or Elephant not count as 'wholly' invoking these unities? And couldn't one say that pretty much every Palme winner has "partially" invoked them?

Don’t forget the masterpieces Chopping Mall and Slumber Party Massacre, which are obviously superior to all the films mentioned because they wholly invoke them. Better be updating your All-Time lists, people.

[soundchaser]

Nasir, I'm sure it feels like we're all pouncing on you again, but I don't disagree that part of what makes the story work is its tightness of structure and the way in which it builds tension. That said, invoking the three classical unities as a measure of quality is rather like saying Taylor Swift is a great pop star because she uses perfect fifths and polyphony like Renaissance composers did. These concepts are important for a thorough historical and theoretical understanding, and they can be employed by choice to create interesting new works, but they're not really a standard by which media has been judged for hundreds of years.

[Nasir007]

That's not what I said though. And per usual it needs to be said again, that anything I post, just as you do is subjective. When I say something is great - It is great (to me) with the parentheses being the implied part which we usually can mercifully omit as being obviously understood. The classical unities is a measure of analysis, an academic construct to construe narratives. They may or may not be taken into account while creating art. Needless to say we consume art in multiple ways. An additional aesthetic layer can impart more meaning to some than others. It's like meter and rhyme in poetry - hardly necessary but if you are able to detect it, it potentially can give you additional pleasure and intellectual engagement. That is all the unities concept is, it is a theory of art from antiquity, which can find expression in works of art being created today and those who want to tease it and take pleasure in it are able to do so.

As for your initial comment that is par for the course for discourse over the internet right? It is but natural for someone's subjective opinions and analyses to cause anger and resentment.

[domino harvey]

No, not everything posted on the internet is subjective. For instance, trying to play an ace when a two will do for explaining why this film works for you. Objectively your discourse is on a level of Freshman Comp (bringing in things that don't matter and aren't a good fit to back up a perspective it doesn't seem you've fully grasped). Members are trying very hard to be nice and patient with you, but we've seen this before you arrived on the scene and we'll see it again long after you've thrown in the towel. If you remain closed to the notion that your approach may not be particularly fruitful for meaningful discussion and insist on falling back on, "Well, it's just my opinion," you will not find a lot of success now or in the future. Here's another objective comment: No one cares about your opinion until you make a compelling case for the benefit of someone who isn't you to consider. If no one's fawning over your take, who do you think is most likely to blame?

[Michael Kerpan]

Bong in Parasite is more like Aristophanes -- on an off day....

[mfunk9786]

Whoa, it's sort of astonishing that the two main sets in this film were built on huge soundstages. I had no idea.

[Michael Kerpan]

We figured that the family's neighborhood was a set -- because we looked at the topography of Seoul and did not see any possible real world location.

[cpetrizzi]

It's hard for me to reply directly to a single post, so I'm just going to throw out my 2 cents about Parasite.

Overall, I felt like the first half of the film was well done. However, everything after

SpoilerShow

Nasir's 5th segment

lacked a certain punch and did not resonate with me or my wife.

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I found the death of the sister confusing which obviously was suppose to be the brother. This scene make no sense unless she had her heart in her shoulder and his head was made of steel. It only leads into the dream sequence which was unfounded for this film! This was suppose to a be a social commentary that "everything is fine and dandy" until we look deeper into the basement (intentional innuendo) until the two shall meet "spirals out of control." Just awful! We know quite a few poor people (as in living in projects) and do monthly trips into the city (including my 12-year old) to make and serve food in soup kitchens. None of them are like the family in this movie! They are extremely grateful for the food and company and many have spectacular life stories to share with us. Mind you, in most places YOU have to provide donations ($25) to do this service. I found the poor in the film just unabashed con-artists.

To me, it almost seemed like 2 different people directed this film. Did anyone else feel this way? Was it intentional? Bong's camera-work was outstanding, though. And from what everyone else here is saying I'm going to try and see Barking Dogs Never Bite & Memoirs of a Murder. I've seen Okja, Mother, The Host, and Snowpiercer. There's no reason for another viewing of Parasite, I got everything 100% upon a single viewing. Pretty underwhelming. I'll place it as one of his worst films.

Oh one more thought...as we came out of the film, I casually said to my wife that I was surprised it wasn't violent and she said the violence was over the top! I had to reel myself in for a second since I forgot she and her friend had me shut off Perfume: The Story of a Murderer after 5 minutes. They were too sensitive to the sights, sounds, and smells of 18th century filthy French markets. I guess we here have been overly desensitized to such things.

[Michael Kerpan]

> There's no reason for another viewing of Parasite

Sadly, I feel the same way. I thought his portrayal of the poor in this was pretty loathsome. I never imagined he could make a movie that could repulse me so thoroughly. I agree it started out better than it finished -- but I didn't even like the first half all that much.

[Mr Sausage]

I wish people would stop referring to the single poor family we follow in the film as the poor. They're not. They are a poor family--and not even the only poor family in the film (let's not forget the central characters' impact on that other poor family; there is definitely a dual victimization going on here).

And while that's great that some of you who work with people from low socioeconomic statuses have met nothing but nice, grateful people, I have to wonder at the naivety of treating your own personal experience as a universal constant--not just for your own country either, but all over the world. I volunteered at a food bank for a while, and the people I met ran the gamut from terrific, grateful, hardworking people, to aggressive, entitled, manipulative people. Poverty isn't ennobling; people are flawed whatever status they come from. And the implication that poor people can't be con artists...I hardly know where to begin with that.

[DarkImbecile]

Sausage beat me to it, so I deleted my own diatribe, but I will ask Michael: what is so substantially different about the portrayal of this family of con artists — as opposed to the one in, say, Shoplifters — that makes it so loathsome?

[Nasir007]

"Poor people" is not a separate category of people. We shouldn't other them. Poverty is just a condition. As likely to happen to me as to anyone. What is the opposite of poor? Rich? I most certainly will not call myself rich. Am I then poor?

And "poor people" don't behave in a certain way. They are regular human beings just not that well off - I find it ridiculous even typing this but there you go. There's not one particular way to portray "poor people".

As for the family in the film, I found them supremely sympathetic. I found them all to be very decent people. I was rooting for them throughout, without necessarily wishing ill on any of the other characters - another genius element of the film. Who am I to judge people on the swindles they commit? The uber-wealthy commit swindles far worse than these poor people (without quotes this time). These people all eventually rendered services in exchange for remuneration. Maybe they faked or exaggerated their experience. Guess what, so did almost every single person who got a good job in their life, including yours truly.

I would never condemn an aspiration to be better than yourself, to change your conditions through voluntary action. There is the law to act as red lines. I need not impose my own morals (such as they are) on top of that.

[feihong]

Not intending to present this in any confrontational manner, I think it would be a mistake to read the film as presenting only a loathsome underclass revealed under a surface of pristine opulence. The idea that the poor Kim family is the "parasite" of the title, leeching off the blind ignorance of the wealthy Park family, is only one read of that parasitic situation the movie presents; and I think it's only meant to be a first read, ultimately surrendering the stage to a more complicated presentation of class roles across recent South Korean history.

The scenario of the film seems immediately more complicated than that in the film's first scene, where we see the Kims living in uncomfortable, squalid conditions––but not conditions of absolute suffering. The Kims' problem, which will propel them into their complex larceny scheme, isn't that they're starving; they aren't desperate at all, but they are hunting for something. In this first scene it's an internet connection they can steal. Key to the positioning of the Kim family is that they are all failures. Each of them has failed at some major goal, from the parents' bakery to the son and daughter's failed attempts at education and degrees. These are pretty simple goals for the characters––in fact, they're absolutely cliched dreams, and one of the most poignant aspects of the film to me is how even as these characters dreams grow, they never become very individualized, with each new dream being something someone else provides for them. Ki–woo's dream, for instance, of marrying into the Park family, is stolen outright from his friend (Min?), who introduces this goal as his own before Ki-woo has even hatched his plan. But the recurrent theme of failure in the Kims' lives is reflected in their search for leeched internet, and framed in the context of where they live––nearly buried underground, and so unnoticed that people are constantly urinating on their apartment. These characters aren't implementing this plan they hatch in order to survive; it's because as they are, they are nearly invisible within their environment. This theme of burial will gain some resonance later in the film, when the Kims discover the former housekeeper's husband buried in the fallout shelter, but I think Bong is able to add an extra valence to this theme when he reintroduces it, because the former housekeeper and her husband are clearly coded to be from an earlier era, a generation older than Kim Ki–Taek and his wife. The housekeeper and her husband sing old fighting anthems from the Korean war, which they sing by heart together, symbolizing this generational remove further. They come from an era of war and scarcity, and they have a harder edge to them than the Kims (not coincidentally, when they gain the upper hand over the Kims they act like the unabashed dictators they knew from their youth––something which the Kims, growing up in an era of economic development and further democratization would never even think to do), and a kind of craziness that I think it's implied is a result of percolating in this basement, this hidden form of living, for so long. The time in solitary (the wife experiences this in a way, as well) means they are warped––locked in a childhood world where threats exist on all sides, and behavior is extraordinarily codified. Just as the Kims would never think to use leverage in the petty, dictatorial ways the housekeeper and her husband do, the housekeeper and her husband would never think to create the complicated scheme the Kims develop, all to be able to participate in the world around them––in fact, the housekeeper and her husband view the Kims as morally in the wrong, even though they are themselves perpetrating a similarly deceptive, though altogether less ambitious scheme.

But I think there's some poignancy to the Kims' big dreams, even if they are leeched from the environment they have so fragile a purpose within. So much time in the early portion of the film deals in sidelong ways with how the Kims each seem to "come alive" adopting their ersatz personas in their scheme. Ki–Taek's joy is especially evident when he's in the car dealership, and afterwards during his test drive. And each of the Kims seem to bask in the feeling of being valuable to the Park family. This gratifies them so immensely, because in fact they want to be seen. They want to take part––this is what's been denied them by their failures, and by they're being poor. But their joy has a bitter aftertaste they don't notice at first. I think if you were to divide the film into two halves, as cpetrizzi is suggesting, you could divide it into a Part I, in which the Kim family gets their mojo back, and swells with pride at their ability to be a recognized, valuable part of their environment once again, and a Part II, in which the Kims come to realize that their newly reclaimed visibility comes at a more serious price than they realized; they are only visible so long as they are in these borrowed identities. As themselves, as a family, they are still invisible; this complication is first introduced when the Kims discover the former housekeeper's husband, and come face-to-face with their own doppelgangers. At first the husband seems to reflect back upon them the invisible identity they all bore before. He is the ultimate in invisible––someone so hidden away that all of society believes him to be dead. He is, moreso than the Kims, a truly pathetic failure, unaware of how miserable he has become. He even had a bakery of his own that folded, and Ki-Taek especially identifies with this demented figure, staring at him aghast and fascinated (and he'll ultimately take the man's place, enshrouding himself in this ultimate invisibility at the climax of the film). That the two of them both know morse code links them together a little closer, and it's Ki–Taek who is the first of the Kims to begin to crack, the first of them to be unable to continue his facade after coming face to face with someone so much like himself, and so scary to him at the same time. In the scene following this the Kims hide under the living room coffee table, becoming even more uncannily invisible to the wealthy and successful Park parents, who spend the night right above them without ever seeing them. There is a way in which, once the Kims integrate into the Park's household, they become invisible for a second time, and they each have to deal with what this means. Ki-Taek becomes increasingly distressed, which is expressed in the way he lingers over the Park family, trying to figure out the emotional motivations they have behind the demands they make of him ("I guess you're doing this because you love your wife..." he babbles to Mr. Park; "you must really love him" he says to the wife, talking about the husband––both of the Parks misinterpret Ki–Taek's utterly benign intentions at these moments––the wife is creeped out by the intimacy of it, and the husband lets Ki–Taek know he's being paid extra at this moment, so he should buckle down to work with a smile on his face [the work at this point is for Ki–Taek to dress like a Indian and raid the Park son's teepee––it's interesting how the work the Kims have to do for the Parks gets progressively more unreasonable, involved and demeaning]). The son, Ki–woo, reacts to the encroaching invisibility of a life of servitude by doubling down on his plan. Instead of aiming to be a gracious servant, now he means to intrude into the Park household by means unable to be ignored; he means to marry the Park's daughter. When Ki–woo announces this desire it seems like a trespass, an overreach that deserves some rebuke; it is at about this point in the film that thunder rumbles and it start to rain, and the mounting deluge, combined with the increasing plot complications of the former housekeeper and her husband––and ultimately the flood that evicts the Kim family and leads to the revealing of who they really are in front of the Parks––all seem like payment for Ki-woo's grand ambition (and in fact, the loss of his sister seems to be a direct, almost Freudian form of karmic payment for his desire for the Parks' daughter). Ki-woo imagines his success will lead to a greater achievement yet––he doesn't perceive that the divide between him and the Parks is essentially an unbreachable gap. He believes his success in becoming their servant will necessarily lead to success in stealing what he imagines to be a greater role. The Parks' daughter sees him as a paramour. Now he needs the entire family to see him as one of them. Yet the events of the second half of the film unseat his confidence in his plan. He worries as he looks out at the Parks' impromptu gathering that he doesn't belong amongst these people. He can't imagine a further downfall waiting in the wings.

If the limits of visibility provides the key dramatic hinge to the Kims' story, the Parks are also revealed by the limits of their own vision. Their neighborhood is situated on a geographical rise (so that their runoff runs down the poor neighborhood, as we see during the rain scene), but their own house is on a man-made butte above the rest of the neighborhood. They are gated–in, and surrounded by thick hedges, and while that means that no one can spy upon their lives (unless they were, for instance, a servant in the household, or a ghost living in the secret bomb shelter under the house), it also means they can't see out, either. When the Parks decide to sleep in the living room, keeping an eye on their son in his teepee, their view of the outdoors consists of the teepee, the lawn, and the hedge––nothing else gets in. If they are more precious and mannered than the Kims, more trusting and more gullible, it is clearly because they lead more myopic lives, in which they interact only with the members of their own class. Younger than the Kim parents, the Parks don't seem nouveau-riche––they seem like people who have grown up succeeding, doing better and better. They are so far removed from the era of the Korean war, for instance, that remnants of that era––the former housekeeper's husband, for instance––are like fairy tales to them––ghosts to scare their children. The Parks seem stupid, even in the context of this movie, because they can't see the things even right before their eyes. They don't notice the former housekeeper's husband coming up the stairs and stealing food from them at night; they don't see that their new house staff are all members of the same family, that none of them have the qualifications they claim to have, or that as they make love on their couch, this invisible family is right below them, and, buried a couple of stories below are the remnants of a past they have no experience with and no access to (in fact, they don't even know the bomb shelter is there under their feet. But I think the film makes it clear that the Parks' seeming stupidity is really a profound limiting of vision––it's not that they couldn't see all these forces moving around them, but rather that they couldn't even imagine them doing so in the first place. But even though their privileged social strata keeps them even from the need to see the forest from the trees, they do have what the Kims want; they are always visible. Successful people are valuable people, and so the Parks needs are always met; they can always participate, always integrate themselves into what's happening around them if they so choose. The Kims, in their poverty, are completely isolated––even from other poor people. They have no neighbors who would show up for an impromptu birthday party, for instance; and what community they have is obliterated by the end of the film, when the whole neighborhood gets flooded, turning them into refugees of disaster––yet a greater helping of invisibility. But the Parks' success is based on the literal bedrock of a bomb shelter, where members of the war generation remain huddled in hiding (and the architect who built the house is also identified with the housekeeper and her husband in that hardscrabble generation––he isn't equated at all with Mr. Park, even though both are successful architects––that original occupant of the house built the shelter to hide from bombs falling, or from debt collectors, and we sense that Mr. Park has never worried about either of these things). In a sense, the wealthy Parks are as much the parasite of the title as the Kims might be. No matter how close a physical proximity the various characters get to one another in the film, they are always held apart not only by class, but by experience, and the different generations in the film are only ever given to only see the world from one vantage point. It is the Park's blithe ignorance and life-long comfort that allows them to ignore the plotting and scheming of those less fortunate surrounding them. But the two poor families of servants, rather than being united by their suffering, are natural enemies, because their outlook on the world around them is palpably different. In the differences on display you can see a whole recent history of South Korea, a transition from an oppressed peasantry to an industrial society, from an industrial society to a 21st–century mega-economy; and in it, each generation remains stuck where they are, unable to cross barriers of class and become visible to one another, because their different outlooks mean that they refuse to admit the real existence of one another.

What does the violence at the end of the film mean in terms of this angle of approach? It seems to me to be karmic payback for the Kim family beginning to overstep their roles. Ki-woo is too ambitious, planning to marry into the Park family. Ki–Taek is increasingly empathetic with the Park parents, wanting to deal with them in the kind of emotional exchange only available to economic and social peers in a stratified, industrial society. Ki–Taek's wife is perhaps a little too facile as the housekeeper––she is the one who most effectively hamstrings the former housekeeper and her husband, and she can be seen to be paying for that as the vengeful husband of the former housekeeper murders her daughter. The Kims' daughter pays with her life; her facility makes so much of the Kims' plan possible, and it's ultimately useless to her against this aggrieved maniac, a relic from an era before she was born. That the Kims don't see this reckoning coming is also due to the limits of their own vision; they don't perceive the chain of damage they're perpetrating by being imposters. Even as they begin to recognize that servitude is just another form of invisibility, they still can't see their plan unravelling in spite of their own cunning. In the end, as Ki-Taek looks and Mr. Park, he realizes that Park suddenly sees who he actually is. His distress at his dying daughter reveals him. The reaction Ki–Taek has is a mix of panic and his frustration at being unable to save his daughter––the murder he commits drives him underground, to take the place of the former housekeeper's husband in the ultimate form of invisibility. In the end of the film Ki–Taek is figuratively "buried alive." It is not accidental then that his son Ki-woo's final plan is for his father to emerge again into the light; to finally become visible, in visibility to become respectable, noticeable, present. I thought that was rather moving. As for the portrayal of the poor characters as conniving, I didn't find it aberrant. I admired their cunning, their wits, their good humor. I wanted them to succeed with their scheme. I felt for their plight at the end. They are living dead at the end of this movie; useless, with no impact within their own society. The Parks need never know exactly what happened to them. They can continue their lives elsewhere, a little sadder but probably no wiser. But Ki–woo is back at the end of the film to where he began the picture, scheming for a way to bring his family out into the light. To me the film is not just a contrast of rich versus poor, but rather and exploration of how those conditions alter and affect what you see in terms of where you are, where you've been, and where you're going.

[yoshimori]

I wish people would stop referring to the single poor family we follow in the film as the poor. They're not.

Of course, you're right; they're not, since, among other reasons, they're fictional. I suspect, though, that what some people are suggesting here is that fiction-writer Bong is clearly sometimes aiming his arrow at what he believes are big real-life "class issues" but just shooting himself in the foot. Unless we're to believe, for example, that the rain that trickles down from the heights to flood the lowlands was a rain that flowed from a specific rich family to a specific poor one.

[DarkImbecile]

Yoshimori, I’d love to hear your actual opinions on this film rather than your attempts at summarizing the opinions others may or may not have.

[therewillbeblus]

I wish people would stop referring to the single poor family we follow in the film as the poor. They're not. They are a poor family--and not even the only poor family in the film (let's not forget the central characters' impact on that other poor family; there is definitely a dual victimization going on here).

And while that's great that some of you who work with people from low socioeconomic statuses have met nothing but nice, grateful people, I have to wonder at the naivety of treating your own personal experience as a universal constant--not just for your own country either, but all over the world. I volunteered at a food bank for a while, and the people I met ran the gamut from terrific, grateful, hardworking people, to aggressive, entitled, manipulative people. Poverty isn't ennobling; people are flawed whatever status they come from. And the implication that poor people can't be con artists...I hardly know where to begin with that.

I think the film’s greatest strength is that neither family is let off the hook and Bong is able to poke fun at both, not only along a classist examination either - just personality clashes along an even-handed plane of socialization, though with that component of socioeconomic disparity acting as a variable driving some story but always tension. He’s also able to take their positions seriously, including the rich family who are by no means ‘bad’ people just as the ‘poor’ family isn’t wholly wrong-minded either. Everything is more complex than a finger wag, but Bong takes his Chabrol influences earnestly, while perhaps being a bit more on-the-nose and delving deeper subjectively, he takes the restraint from going all out toward any of these assumptions as a challenge. I didn’t love this movie, especially after the engaging plan of the first half ended, but if anything I thought it was too restrained from delivering full tilt into a position heavy enough to match the style and energy, subverting my expectations in the process, but I think I just saw a different movie than the rest of you!

cpetrizzi, I don’t agree with some of the claims in your post, but that observation about the audience fake-out toward the end still bothers me too, and I’ve yet to hear a defense of it (apologies if I overlooked one in this thread). To me it’s just disrespectful audience manipulation and plain sloppy.

[Michael Kerpan]

Sausage beat me to it, so I deleted my own diatribe, but I will ask Michael: what is so substantially different about the portrayal of this family of con artists — as opposed to the one in, say, Shoplifters — that makes it so loathsome?

I have begun erasing the film from my mind at this point, I'm afraid. I just know that I felt a lot of sympathy for Kore'eda's characters -- despite seeing their (considerable) flaws. Somehow Kore'eda's family seemed like some semblance of real people -- and Bong's seemed (all too often) like little more than cheap caricatures. (Remember - I went into Parasite fully expecting to like it a lot -- at the very least).

[Mr Sausage]

Of course you felt more sympathy for Kore'eda's characters. Shoplifters is a humane comedy-drama. Parasite is a dark and toxic satire. Our position in regards to Bong's characters is a very different one.

Parasite is basically about a society in which groups of people all feed off each other. There are no good guys or bad guys, but a system generating unhealthy behaviour that tends toward disaster. The point is not to feel sympathy for an underclass in their fight against an overclass, but to see how a system works to create negative social attitudes and unhealthy behaviours. You can sympathize with the characters if you want, but mostly you're to see how they are trapped, and what behaviours result. Indeed, the movie fucks with our preconceptions by showing the family target a member of an overclass, the seemingly priviledged maid, sure at this point of their righteousness, only for it to be revealed the maid is of an even lower underclass. It's made plain we're viewing a corrupting system rather than a situation navigated by good and bad people. No one caught within the system is untainted. I'm beginning to think Bong has pitched his provocations better than I'd thought, given how uncomfortable this has made those who'd prefer a something less muddy, a drama with moral lines drawn more clearly. Bong's refusal is his triumph, not his failure.

Anyway, expecting one group in the movie to be unambiguously better than the others is missing the point.

[Michael Kerpan]

I agree it is satire of a sort -- but I see it as utterly nihilistic rather than "social criticism".

[cpetrizzi]

I believe I missed making my point (happens a lot) with a sarcastic comment in my second spoiler about "this was suppose to be a social commentary."

It cannot be denied that "the masses" feel like this film is a social commentary about current class issues (even Bong has chimed in saying so). Many people I've talked to about it feel the same way. I feel Bong DID NOT do a good job justifying this to me since my own personal experience with poverty stricken individuals has been overall good. I've read reviews that say this films "stuns viewers" with its class commentary and even so far as "revolutionized" cinematic techniques (paraphrasing).

Do many of you think people are generally good or bad?

I've asked a question taking class out of the equation. In my line of work, I interact with hundreds if not thousands of various types people of every year. I'd have to say there are about 2-3 "bad" seeds out of every 100. I'm not talking about bad in an evil sense (even though there may be), just bad as in they might lean towards unethical behavior as the Kim's did.

Nasir, you've distilled my post to black and white, which was not fair. Also, I don't think anyone could "fall" into being poor. You seem to see it as a condition, like an illness. It's not. In fact, it's almost a mind-set, and I'd go so far as to say, choice.

If you ask people what class they consider themselves, most would say "middle class," whatever that means. What's amazing is that this range is at the poverty level to many times more than that. I'm reluctant to give actual figures because this would not pertain to global economies, but in the US it might mean a family of 4 making anywhere from $40,000 to $1,000,000 per year. I know many people who fall outside this range on both sides that live fairly "normal" lives. Even some billionaires see themselves as regular people. Most are all very "good" people. I don't adhere to monetary levels to determine rich or poor. My definition of a poor family is one in need of some type of assistance, definitely living below the poverty line, and most likely have a substandard amount of education (though due to some circumstances might have a college degree). To me rich simply means being able to live comfortably without working. That could mean a family living off of their ancestors' generation wealth or a barber who has saved 30% of his income, invested wisely in a no-load mutual fund, and is living off the cashflow of a $5,000,000 nest egg. See how "poor" or "rich" really isn't a condition?

The Kim's were dispicable. They tried to game the system and lost. The Park's also lost, but just because they were trusting and naive. If this were a true class commentary, wouldn't we all want the underdog to win? Many here have said that they felt more for the Parks than the Kims. Do we have a poverty problem in the world? Sure, I guess. Here in the US many Democrats/Liberals feel that a tax on the wealthy (2% for those over $50,000,000; 6% for over $1,000,000,000) would solve certain problems since it would theoretically produce trillions of dollars in the next 10 years. You know what would actually happen? Nothing close to that. Those people that control all the companies would pass on those taxes to, guess who, the middle class. And we would be burdened with paying trillions of dollars more.

I do acknowledge that the class situation in Korea may be a bit different than that of the US. And I respect that. But to me, being rich or poor is still a choice. Not a condition.

[knives]

But to me, being rich or poor is still a choice. Not a condition.

I should tell that to my homeless students. That should cheer them up.

[Brian C]

I really appreciate Feihong's post, which is really fantastic and made me think about my own reaction to the movie. Actually, I consider it the definitive piece of writing that I've come across on the film to date.

It would really be nice if this thread didn't get bogged down in nonsense about whether being poor is a choice or a condition, which is irrelevant to the film in addition to just being asinine.

[cpetrizzi]

But to me, being rich or poor is still a choice. Not a condition.

I should tell that to my homeless students. That should cheer them up.

knives, I've had the benefit of having a few different careers in business and education. We all know it takes a village...

I've had many similar students who I urged to better themselves. Because of their "condition," many of them actually get full rides to state colleges. The goal is to see them matriculated, get through in 6 years, and graduate so that they can have a better life for themselves (and their family). It's really 100% THEIR decision whether they choose to go or not to go. Some do make it through with a lot of support and some don't make it. I'm still in contact with many of my former students. Some went on to graduate school and even gotten their PhDs. Other made the choice to have kids out of wedlock, drop out of school, and become car salesmen. Whose choice was it to go on those different paths? Society's to blame?

If you think it's a condition, then I'm sorry. Those students will truly never escape their "condition."

[Mr Sausage]

I agree it is satire of a sort -- but I see it as utterly nihilistic rather than "social criticism".

No, this is not a film that feels nothing ultimately matters and values are constructs with no inherent validity. It’s motivated by a palpable moral force. It’s no different than Snowpiercer: systems muddy their actors; clear moral lines turn out to’ve been compromised; even right actions in an ugly system are coopted by the system. It’s just Snowpiercer allowed an apocalyptic vision in which the system itself was destroyed, the only good option for a structure that just ran in circles. Parasite is more despairing, since none of the characters are allowed a perspective to see how they are inside a decaying system. Indeed, at the end, they seem to think the system will still provide a solution. But we can see outside the system, and by no means is the movie getting us to feel none of this ultimately matters. In fact it does matter that these systems are in place and cause people to feed off each other.