Parasite

Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time watch challenge #175 - (film =90 out of 264) One of the few films released since the last S&S list to make it onto the most recent one, Parasite still is as fantastic a watch as the first time I saw it, roughly a week or two after being laid off from my first studio job. Going alone to a showing at the South Congress Alamo Drafthouse, the midday showtime I had selected was a lot more packed than I thought it would be. I had bought my tickets well in advance and was one of the first people to select my seat, so I thought I would be treated to a nice, quiet theatre experience with just myself and the drafthouse’s runners taking my order and delivering food from the specially created Parasite-inspired menu. I had my fill that day. I order from the regular menu and the Parasite menu, taking an opportunity to indulge myself since I felt it would be the last time in a long time I would be able to do so. I had so many plates piled up that by the time we get to the scene where the Kim family had gathered inside of the rich peoples’ house to enjoy their food and luxuries while they were away, my own section of table very much resembled their own. Money is fleeting! Spend it when you can! That was how I felt, especially with how frustrated I was after losing what was a relatively stable animation job. Most people are lucky to spend an entire year at one studio and yet I had spent four years of my life working at the same studio, my first studio job after college. So yes, this film, along with several other films I saw around that same time given the extra time on my hands, has a special meaning to me. The frustrations of capitalism weighed on me just as it weighed upon the Kim family. I would see the film again, this time having moved cities for a new animation job, with my parents. Parasite had just been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and, like several other Oscar noms, was being screened again in a limited capacity if it wasn’t already released during prime Oscar awards bait season. It was another dine-in theatre, like the Alamo Drafthouse, but unlike the theatre chain I had grown to love while in Texas, this one, which I do not remember the name of, presented itself as much more upscale and “bougie”. No burgers and fries. No finger foods. The selection included pastas and steaks. This felt so antithetical to the theatre experience for me. Regardless, I ordered the salmon. Urgency and unobtrusiveness was also very much on the minds of the serving staff at this dine-in theatre, but compared to the staff at Alamo Drafthouse, the staff here always walked upright and prim and propper, not rushing crouched down, silent like assassins like what I was used to. The food came out on noisy ceramic plates with metal silverware, a far cry from the relatively quieter eating utensils I’d receive before. My meal resembled the fancier meals prepared for the wealthier Park family. It felt off and wrong. This was too nice, too fancy, too extravagant a meal and presentation for something like a movie. It’s hard not to be aware of the apparent class message that Bong Joon-ho has set up in Parasite. It is the background radiation of the entire Kim family. Bong’s compositions and blocking are so tight and meticulous, showing such extreme contrast between the lifestyles of the Kim and the Park families through balance alone. The cramped compositions of the Kim family sub-basement apartment in their cheaper, grimier part of town are a far cry from the rigid, tall, and wide compositions in the fancier and “artistically minded” Park family home, designed by a famous architect. Bong creates several invisible barriers throughout the film, using the architecture itself to draw these lines, lines that the Park patriarch constantly reminds his wife that good hired help “don’t cross”. And yet the Kim family is forced to cross them, not only just to live, but because the lines are arbitrary. The Park family can draw them however they like. They have power that the Kims do not. Bong’s compositions reflect this as the balance of the shots skew to center the Parks, but rarely the Kims. The film is practically a masterclass in building up suspense and balancing comedy with drama, realizing that the sources for both are the same. To this day I prefer the meal of Korean wings, a burger and fries, and a peach soju - one of the rare times I allowed myself an alcoholic drink - over the marinated salmon with asparagus drizzled with olive oil and a spritz of lemon with a mashed potato side.