Parasite

When I watched this movie around 5 years ago, I lacked the bandwidth to fully understand why it is actually top of its game, and why it ended a really great decade of moviemaking on a good note: One detail that is very very gut wrenching during the ‘impromptu trauma party’ was having the movie explicitly tell you what Park’s family thought of Kim’s family. Ki-Jung bleeds out onto the grass with only her father trying to subdue her fatal end. All the wealthy partygoers freak out over Da-Song, who simply fainted. They thought nothing of them from the start rather than salaries to be paid. That expression of the gap between two groups starts to scream at you over the lulls of smell complaints, the storm grates, off handedly firing staff you’ve had for decades, and other honest yet tension-building details Bong Joon Ho created. Not to mention the opinions on love from three differing perspectives. After watching Kurosawa’s movie High and Low recently as well, Parasite has made me view the plot of the former very differently. The shot of Ki-Woo peering into the house reminded me of the sympathy I felt for Gondo. Having a mansion on a hill, with the impoverished being overlooked in valleys below was that exact same setup tho… so what could’ve been the story there??