Parasite: The Best Film 2019

The Parasite is a South Korean black comedy thriller film that has received significant acclaim. After watching it, Parasite is the best film of 2019, and it deserves the recognition it received.

The film was set in South Korea and released on 21 May 2019, premiering at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It was later released on the 30^th of the same month. It features members of a low-income family – Kim family, who schemes and infiltrates a wealthy family – Park family, as domestic workers. The scheme begins with Ki-woo Kim (Choi Woo-Shik) faking college credentials and flirting with Da-hye – a daughter to Mr Park (Lee Sun-Kyun) to get a tutor job. After he is hired, he recommends his sister Ki-Jung (Park So-dam). Ki-Jung frames a limo driver, and their father, Ki-Taek Kim (Song Kang-ho), becomes the new driver. The scheming continues until the Park family hires the whole Kim family without knowledge. After utter infiltration, the Kims reveals to Moon-Gwang, a housekeeper whose husband has been living secretly in the basement for four years. The secrets lead to a greasy confrontation that leads to exposure of identities, deaths, a conviction of fraud, and freeing of some characters. The film is the greatest of 2019 as it has a strong message about social stratification in society, and gives the audience a different perspective of life regarding the rich and the poor.

The parasite is a great film since it has a great message to the society concerning social stratification between the wealthy and the poor. The Kim family is poor as they live in a semi-basement house where they struggle to make ends meet through temporary jobs. The Park family is wealthy, living in a custom-constructed house, and hiring house helps drivers, and private tutors. Although the two families eventually conglomerate into one, with the Kim family occupying various domestic roles, they do not shed the social stratification that is prevalent in Asia. Park’s young son Da-Song sniffs at Ki-Taek and Ki-Jung, then comments that Kim’s family has “same smell. They smell exactly the same!” (Joon-ho 56-58). Ki-Jung says that the smell is caused by ‘the basement… [and that the] smell will not go away unless [they] leave” the place [semi-basement] (Joon-ho 58-60). The symbolic use of smell in the film is implemented creatively to create a motif, and eventually, a theme – social stratification. Importantly, the stratification is concealed in Asian society, just as in the film, where poverty is not mentioned. This is affirmed by Ambrose, whose study contends that Asian stratification systems are invisible (291). Another study found that the castle [strati] system is normalized in Asian society, since “new forms that caste [stratifications] assumes in the face of changing social relations (Gorringe et al. 234). Nevertheless, its implications are severe, such as the manipulation of the less fortunate in society. The artistic and contextual representation of the duo stratiform and its lessons from a concealed social stratification system merits Parasite all the acclaim and greatest film of 2019.

Besides the lessons to society, Parasite is a great film because it gives the audience a different perspective on life. Life in its natural form has differential experiences depending on which social class one is. That way, the wealthy has ended up perceiving the poor as less worthy, or have benefited from them. For instance, Parks leave the Kim family taking care of the home, as they go for camping. On the flip side, the Kim family mischief the Park to benefit from them as domestic workers. That is through fraud and framing other employees. Besides, the Kim family misuse the huge Park house for the weekend (Joon-ho 1:10-1:15). The duo perspective indicates how both the rich and the poor take advantage of one another, depicting the true meaning of a parasite. McCurry explains that the societal perspective of one another as a pray or parasite is the major catalyst for the wage gaps in South Korea (par.14). Therefore, Parasite is an eye-opener of the perspectives in the society, which may, at times, cause adverse effects such as benefiting from one another. In that view, the film diverse the recognition it is due.

However, some critiques have argued that the film is not a true representation of real life and thus not deserving its recognition. In a review from The New Yorker titled, “How ‘Parasite’ Falls Short of Greatness” by Richard Brody, he compared films like Joker released in the same year and contends that Parasite is not worth the acclaim. According to Brody, Parasite fails to depict the “conventions and habits of realistic social dramas” (Brody par.2). He adds that the film does not offer serious chaos to push for serious changes, and instead focus on “messaging to wreak a devastating twist on a dark truth of capitalism” (Brody par.5). While Brody particularly critiques to defend Joker as the best film, they are inherently different and are not comparable thematically. Joker has many chaotic exaggerations, which are explicitly in the context of western society, while Parasite depicts a natural form of life between the rich and the poor.

Therefore, people should watch the Parasite with an open mind, viewing it as a simulation of society as it is. The film is a comedic thriller, hence interesting, and expository, thus educative. It is a lens through which social stratification may be critiqued and offers a duo perspective of life from the rich and the poor simultaneously.

Works Cited

Ambrose, Inyang,. “The Dynamics Of Social Stratification In Contemporary Asian Societies.”. Asian Studies Module., vol 052, no. 970, 1997, pp. 286-299., https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED407972.pdf. Accessed 8 July 2020.

Brody, Richard. “How “Parasite” Falls Short Of Greatness”. The New Yorker, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/how-parasite-falls-short-of-greatness.

Gorringe, Hugo et al. “Caste: Experiences In South Asia And Beyond”. Contemporary South Asia, vol 25, no. 3, 2017, pp. 230-237. Informa UK Limited, doi:10.1080/09584935.2017.1360246. Accessed 8 July 2020.

Joon-ho, Bong Joon-ho. Parasite. CJ Entertainment, 2019.

McCurry, Justin. “Parasite: How Oscar Triumph Has Exposed South Korea’S Social Divide”. The Guardian, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/16/parasite-film-oscars-bong-joon-ho-seoul-rich-poor-south-korea.