Parasite...
The title does and doesn’t do the movie justice. I’ve noticed that it leaves the wrong impression in people’s minds, leading them to believe it’s one type of movie when in reality, it’s a weird title for a metafilm about classism. No matter what your opinion about the title is, nothing will prepare you for the movie.
I’m still suffering the aftershocks of watching Parasite. Even though I’ve rated it, had countless debates with my husband on the film, and started to scour the internet for other people’s interpretations, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the whole thing. Is this really a movie I’d rewatch (I am going to rewatch it to study the directing and cinematography) or recommend to a friend (I’ve already recommended the movie since writing this blog)? Probably not.
Parasite follows a family who is trying to get a job. When a friend offers Ki Woo a standing tutoring job while he goes abroad, Ki Woo jumps at the chance, seeing a way for his whole family to move up in the world. That is, until one night puts all that they’ve worked for at risk.
First off, there were too many pills for me to swallow.
Twenty minutes into the movie and there were no stakes for me. I didn’t know who to care about. Was it Ki Woo and his family? I understood that his family had hit a tough time, but they were con artists. Was it Yeon Kyo, the rich wife who is lost in her own world? It’s hinted that something is wrong with her. Something that was never fully explored. Something mentioned in passing to put a small sliver of pity in the viewer’s heart. Still, she feels too stupid falling for the con leaving the viewer to feel that she deserved what she got. Am I missing some cultural piece that could bring the movie all together?
Yes I am.
I’m sure it’s not a director or screenwriter’s first thought to make their film appeal to an international audience. But Parasite did become an international sensation and is being consumed everywhere. If there was one second spent to explain the economic hardships of the culture and how hard it is to find a job, I think I could have found a stake quicker. Instead, I had to guess and then question if my guess was right. It might have even made the transition halfway into the movie understandable… or maybe not.
Switching genres halfway is not something I’m okay with. I get stuck in trying to figure out what’s happening so that I miss the whole point of the movie.
I get that we all have different tastes in movies. That what I say is opinion, not to always be taken as the law. But there are areas where the rules are broken and a movie is just bad. Parasite is no exception. I’ll give them the genre switch, I’ll give them all the things that are to someone’s taste. However, the writing made so many mistakes.
Contradictions… The amount of contradictions in the story leads me to violence. From the very beginning you’re introduced to Yoen Kyo as having issues. Be it in her brain or an absent husband, something is not right. Fast forward to the second half of the film and that’s flipped. Yoen Kyp is happy and healthy in her marriage. She runs her house fine. She holds herself together. And if that’s all just a front, well, where does the string of her unhappiness go?
Then we have the unbelievability of Ki Woo and his family. This was a family that couldn’t even fold pizza boxes, and now they’re able to con an entire family. A family with an education? The sister is able to calm a little boy. The father knew how to drive a car with such skill - he made it clear he was just a valet. How about no? Conning the pizza person wasn’t enough. I needed more to believe the con that they were pulling off. I needed to understand what they were doing to be successful.
What I saw was them working hard when they got their placements. Maybe they weren’t trying to get rich. They were willing to work for everything. They just needed the opportunity.
See the pieces are still falling in my head.
I would say that the first half of the second act was my favorite part of the film. I love a good con movie and the film was definitely playing that part up. From there, as I watched the movie play out, I said “if so and so doesn’t happen, then something crazier has to”. Well it did. From that moment on the movie lost me.
Now that I’m done venting in all the ways I was annoyed, I want to take a second to talk about where the movie went right. Joon-Ho’s ability to take classism and turn it into a thriller was well done. The meta of it all was played very well. The line between the two classes is stark and really comes to life at the end. It all asks the question of can you get out of what you were born into? This is a movie that requires a lot of thought. It’s not something that you can just sit and watch for the sake of watching a movie.
Happy Watching
Love Kait