Movie Review: Parasite (2019)

Parasite (2019) co-written and directed by Bong Joon Ho

A down-and-out Korean family lives in a basement apartment. They use their neighbor's wifi (without permission) and do odd jobs like folding pizza boxes for a local pizza place. They get a break when the son, Ki Woo (Choi Woo Shik), gets a visit from a college friend. The friend has a side-job tutoring a rich teen-age girl. But he is going to America for an extended period and thought of Ki Woo for the job. Ki Woo is worried that he isn't qualified, so his sister, Ki-Jung (Park So Dam), fakes some college records. The parents approve and Ki Woo discovers that the family is rich and has a beautiful home up on a hill. He recognizes how gullible the family is and starts to exploit them. The sister gets a job as an art tutor and therapist (something for which she has no qualifications other than Googling info about art) for the English student's younger brother. Soon enough, they've gotten some other people in the house fired so Mom and Dad can have jobs. The con goes fairly smoothly until the fired housekeeper comes back for something she left behind. Then the situation slowly and inevitably falls apart.

The social satire is sharp and acerbic. At first, the movie sympathizes with the poor family, though they quickly shift into manipulative and self-serving actions. The rich family is very passive but also incompetent. They don't check up on any of the lies they are told. The theme of class warfare is reinforced visually through the use of layers and staircases. The basement apartment has some ground-level windows but all they see is the street where drunks often come to pee. The house is on a hill but all they see is their yard and the carefully clumped together trees that blot out the rest of the city. Both families have limited and unrealistic views of the world, literally and metaphorically. The problem bleeds over into their relationships which are superficially cordial. Deeper down, they do not like each other. It's not that hard for conflict to start.

I have to say I don't share the pessimism of the filmmakers. They clearly look at the division of rich and poor as a class warfare that is bound to result in conflict. The characters' relations are parasitic, using the others for self-benefit while looking down on those others (a lose-lose situation). There's no sense that they could be symbiotic, doing different things for each other that are beneficial for the other and ultimately for the self (a win-win situation). Maybe if any of the characters had been decent human beings, things wouldn't have fallen apart like they did.

I admire this as a work of art, it is well-written and visually interesting. On the other hand, I wound up not liking any of the characters or the ending or the message of the movie. So I only have a half-hearted recommendation.

Slightly recommended.