Parasite, Part I
The Best Best Picture in the Past Decade
“You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan.”
As I’ve mentioned in this space before, Parasite holds special places in my heart and my Film Lit teaching mind: it’s the film that cured me of my addiction to trailers; and it was and is a defining film in the Great Film Lit Reset of 2020.
It’s a film that still gets better and gives me more to think and talk about every time I watch it. And thus I’m still learning how best to teach it. But I’ll tell you a true story.
This past weekend I was working late at Gunn—taking a break to get some steps by walking around my room, if I’m being totally honest—and I was terrified to see someone opening my classroom door. Doing my best to appear composed, I asked the opener, “Can I help you?”
It took just seconds for me to actually compose myself, as I saw that I was asking that question to a young man who seemed nice enough and was with three other nice-enough-seeming friends. It took another few seconds to find out they were Gunn graduates just out for a walk, checking out their old haunts. One of them thanked me for—her (paraphrased) words—being the teacher who taught her grammar, skills she was grateful for in college. And then the opener revealed that he took Film Lit with me, and that he was studying Film in college.
I asked him what films he was studying, and he said, “Well, we just finished watching and discussing Parasite.” Reader, I was GEEKED. I yelled, “NO WAY!” Dying with instant curiosity, I asked him what concepts and techniques they discussed in his class.
He said, “Well, actually, mostly the stuff we talked about in your class.”
Within seconds, I had melted into a puddle.
And, scene. (And, okay, that last part isn’t technically true.)
“Dad, your emotions are up to here. Bring them down to about there.”
As I write, Parasite pairs (very well) with The Graduate in my Visual Storytelling Unit, which puts special emphasis on how directors use technique to forward their agendas, and get viewers to think and feel what they want us to think and feel. (Editor’s note: it’s not clear to me how I got this many posts into this endeavor without covering The Graduate. Rest assured: I’ll get to it.)
Without giving too much away, I’ll tell you that two image systems frame our Graduate discussions. So when we get to Parasite, students are familiar with the concept. If you’re not, an image system is a term I ripped off from Robert McKee in Adaptation. (Editor’s note: it’s not clear to me how I got this many posts into this endeavor without covering Adaptation. Rest assured: I’ll get to it.)
Now, to be fair, I’m not even technically ripping it off from Robert McKee; I’m ripping it off from Donald Kaufman’s understanding of what he learned from Robert McKee. And, in the story’s context, it would make sense if he got it wrong. So I’m not sure if I’m using it right, but my understanding is that an image system is a visual motif, a pattern of shots. And here’s what Donald has to say about image systems: “Bob says an image system greatly increases the complexity of an aesthetic emotion.”
All that to say: we’ll look at three of Parasite’s image systems over the course of the next two Pitches.
“Rich people are so naive.”
The first image system we trace in class is the use of slow motion sequences, ones highlighted by closeups.
The first sequence in this thread is what I call the “Peach / Tuberculosis Sequence,” when the Kims execute the final phase of their now-hostile takeover and get Moon-gwang removed from the house. Set to “The Belt of Faith,” a classical piece that lends an operatic feel to the enterprise, the sequence shows us what one student called “the Kims at the peak of their powers.”
We see the Kims commit a variety of crimes, from petty theft (Ki-jung stealing at least one peach) to battery and even potentially attempted homicide (exposing Moon-gwang to the peaches). My favorite moment is when Ki-jung has just sprinkled some peach fuzz on Moon-gwang’s neck and gives her a remorseless side-eye from the fridge. It’s eerie and chilling.
The close-ups and slow motion help us understand how precise and skilled the Kims are. They use their street smarts to anticipate and design well. (For all his moral bankruptcy in this sequence, Ki-woo is an excellent script writer and director, giving Ki-taek exactly the preparation and guidance he needs to convince Yeon-kyo that replacing Moon-gwang is a matter of life and death.) And, of course, all the Kims are excellent actors.
That the Kims are so skilled indirectly adds another level of sadness to the film, one that speaks to the powers of class and the pressures of capitalism. By most measures, these are smart, competent, hard-working people. And when we first meet them, they are so desperate they are pirating wi-fi, breathing in fumigation, and hustling pizza joint franchisees to avoid fines for their poor folding. So, for whatever reasons, their skills and intelligence have not helped them get ahead. I’m not excusing their awful behavior; the full picture of who they are, though, includes frustration about being unrewarded and unlucky.
“So we’re all gathered here today to celebrate the reconnection of our phones, and this bounteous Wi-Fi!”
The next slow motion sequence we discuss is when Ki-woo rises to put an end to the public urinator’s rain of terror. After Ki-woo instinctively and ominously grabs the landscape rock and intends to handle this situation with violence—or, at least, threats of violence—Ki-taek convinces him to use water to fight water. (Crude and coarse sidebar: even though we can condemn the urinator’s life choices, the sheer volume of urine he relieves himself of is quite impressive.)
Where the scene gets especially good is when Ki-jung decides to capture the confrontation on her phone. On one level, it’s important to note that Ki-jung feels separate from the fray. She definitely loves and is one of the family, but she does tend to isolate herself, seeing herself as better than the rest of the Kims, on a higher level than the rest.
(Perhaps the best scene to illustrate this point is the iconic shot of her smoking on the sewage-spewing toilet. While her father and brother try frantically to save what they can for the good of the family, she thinks only of herself, of her own comfort. And she achieves that minimal level of relief by retrieving something she’s kept hidden from them. The camera has us look up at her, and she’s definitely on her own. But the irony in this case, especially as the water rises, is that she’s in no position of power or superiority. She looks desperate and pathetic.)
We get a close up of Ki-jung’s phone, and we can see several degrees of remove: we see Ki-woo and Ki-taek, who are on the street, not just through the window, but through a phone looking through the window. Ki-jung is safe and sound behind multiple screens, and laughing it up at a situation her brother, for one, probably doesn’t find that funny.
And that’s where it’s important that we get this sequence in slow motion, so soon after the slow motion capture of the Kims boldest and best-executed plot. Whereas before, the Kims were creatures of precise execution, here Ki-taek is so oafishly clumsy that he showers his son in water, while the urinator is relatively unscathed by Ki-taek’s efforts. Put simply, they’ve become a clown show.
It matters that they’ve done so so quickly. I mean, it’s not irrelevant that the scene opens on the Kims basking in their own magnificence, congratulating themselves on their victory. They are smug, and the friendly water Ki-woo takes from Ki-taek tells us that they are getting sloppy—at a stage in their endeavor that requires even more meticulous attention to detail and execution.
I’ll admit: on first viewing, I loved the scene, but I should probably have taken that scene as more of an omen that I did. I’ll remind the reader that I was trailer-ignorant and thus knew hardly anything about this film when I walked into the theater. And I’ll always believe that my ignorance made that first viewing more powerful than it would have been otherwise. I remember thinking after the water fight scene that I finally had a grasp on what the movie was about; I believed I was watching an homage to a Shakespearean comedy, infused with class warfare and mistaken identity. lol, as they say.
The next major ominous shot we discuss, one that also highlights the Kims’ rapid onset of privilege, shows the Kims on the Park house lawn. They have found a new way to, as Mr. Park so famously repeats, “cross the line,” and have invited themselves over for a family house-sitting staycation of sorts. We see a glorious low and wide angle shot, one that presents the house as a towering castle; more importantly, we see the storm coming, literally, as rain clouds race across the sky—foreshadowing the disasters to come.
And as if the invasion isn’t brazen enough, Chung-sook launches a hammer off-screen, and the alarm we hear tells us that she hit something (probably a car). Now, we have evidence that she’s very good at throwing hammers—one of the items Ki-taek rescues from their flooded apartment is her medal—so she had to know that the Park yard would not confine her throw. And if she did know, she didn’t care. She’s reckless and dangerous, and, in the grand scheme of things, a damaged car is one of the least-destructive possible outcomes of her throw. Even before their drinking party, they are drunk with self-satisfaction and privilege. They believe they are better than everyone else, and have no consideration for anyone else’s problems.
“I’ve missed your jokes, honey.”
The next major slow motion sequence with close ups is the fight for the phone. That they are in this spot is another shoe to drop from their adopted privilege. The more I watch the film, the more I think one of the most important lines is Chung-sook’s refusal to agree to help Moon-gwang. For her part, Moon-gwang is hopeful that she can find some working-class empathy, and refers to Chung-sook at “sis.” Indignant at the very idea of helping a poor and desperate (and, by all indications, loving) couple, she spits out, “Don’t call me sis!” Chung-sook either cannot tell how similar she and Moon-gwang are, or can, and wants to deny those similarities. Either way, her refusal to come to some sort of mutually beneficial agreement speaks to her belief that she is just flat-out better than Moon-gwang. It sounds dumb, but I get sad in this scene, wanting so much for Chung-sook just to play ball and help.
The fight for the phone features several slow motion close-ups. The sequence in question begins as Moon-gwang and Geun-se dance in the sunlight to an obscure (to me) 1964 song, “In Ginocchio Da Te,” by Gianna Morandi. Lost in their reminiscences, they get punked by their living statues, and quickly find themselves in a fight for their lives. The song continues, providing an ironic soundtrack to the pathetic and buffoonish hand-to-hand and peach-to-neck combat.
My favorite part, though, is when the camera shifts outside the house, and all of a sudden we’re looking at the feuding families from behind the hedges. We’ll cover the significance of the specific camera placement in the next installment. For now, the point of the slow motion in this sequence is again to highlight how far the once-careful Kims have fallen. The camera technique usually highlights precision; here it exposes and accentuates sloppiness.
That the birthday party scene features several slow motion sequences and close-ups comes as no surprise and ends the Kims arc from fastidious hustlers to frenzied criminals. And, yes, that we see a mix of slow motion and shots and shots at normal speed contributes to a chaotic tone, one fitting of such a heartbreaking and destructive scene.
“I’d be nice, too.”
See you next time, for Part II of Parasite.