By Allen Gutierrez and Shrenel Macabare
“He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free.” Victor Hugo once said. The award-winning film by Bong Joon ho, Parasite, resonates the declining rate of social mobility in Korea, something that the director has specialized in all of his works. The film illustrates the difference of social class through objects as symbols, how it emphasizes their lifestyle and how a simple object can change their mindset, and It also displays how the social class is divided in the country and how greed can make people do unacceptable or terrible things just to survive, especially in the case of poverty.
The movie’s main plot begins to unfold when Ki-woo from the Kim family scores a gig tutoring the daughter of the wealthy Park family. Their way of making money is by smooching off of others, from the minute Ki-woo steps to the mansion, he then deceives the rich family about his educational status by using forged documents from a prestigious university, when in reality he does not go to college. Once he gained access to the Park’s luxurious mansion, which could not be seen in any angle of the Kims cramped and mouldy semi-basement home, where one set of stairs descend to the semi-underground house and another ascends to the front door of the ultra wealthy Park family. Ki-woo figured out a way to get his family members inside the park’s home as workers then gradually his sister worked there as an art instructor for the family’s son, his father as their driver, and his mother as the housekeeper.
Parasite has caught the attention of the many South Korean families, the storyline shows a down on its luck family which is the Kim family, infiltrating the lives of a much wealthier family as impostors, slowly penetrating, manipulating and taking advantage of every situation more and more into their lives, as represented by the Kims to the family of Parks, which it also depicts the widening gaps between the rich and the poor. Also, it shows how the environment affects a person as shown by Da-song, the energetic son of the rich family, the Kims almost get found out that after being smelled by Da-song where the two pretends to be a stranger to each other. The boy noticed their semi-underground scent, implying that they carry the scent of their home with them wherever they go, and that poverty is not something they can conceal.
In the movie, objects are used as symbols in the film to illustrate the kind of life the Park and the Kim family are like, lights are based on social status and the scholar’s rock as a hope. At the two family houses, more lights can be seen at the house of the Parks while the lights at the house of the Kims can even be barely seen, which shows the status or social class of the two families of being rich and poor. Another object used in the film is the scholar’s rock, the one that was given to them before their “luck” begins, the rock symbolizes as a hope for the Kim’s family, to have a better life and escape their situation which is poverty. At the end of the movie, it can also be seen being hugged by Ki-taek, the father of the family at the secret basement where he hid after the incident because he still thinks the stone will still give him hope, but it turns out the hope that keep him alive becomes a parasite that leads to misfortune.
The movie depicts how hunger can lead to desperate acts. The kind of hunger we witness from Kim’s family leads to various forms of exploitation. But, it’s not simply exploitation that makes for a parasite. There are many complicated things that cause the need to feed off someone else. This action is a complete representation of how greed a person can be just to survive. We first meet the Kim’s in their crowded, smelly, basement apartment. The basement is ironically, or not so ironically, where Mr. Kim and Ki-woo start and end. They’re the image of defeat. Also Greed can turn to rage as seen in Mr. Kim’s action in the end when he is so full of humiliation from Mr. Park because of his smell. Greed doesn’t provide a very big gain. In fact, we see in Parasite just how it leads to very big losses. And, in the vicious cycle that hunger, helplessness, and lack of help keep alive ,it will put you right back where you started. Trapped in a basement of desperation. Either believing there is no way out or relying on a son to find a different way.
The country of South Korea and the Philippines have so much in common when it comes to the case of poverty, where job opportunities are hard to have because diploma is a big must in order to have such high paying jobs, and many families are frustrated by the high cost of raising children and access to education is also hard to acquire and maintain especially until college because of insufficient money for school fees, where the children are forced to help their parents work instead of going to school to study, just so they can earn enough money to have a decent food prepared to eat at their table and fill their stomachs. The film also portrays how hard a family is willing to take just to provide their needs. The Parasite reflects how life works for those people that are living under poverty. The man that constantly peeing shows how extreme the poverty is, that they have to endure him vomiting outside their windows while they were eating and hack their neighbor’s wifi just to keep updated for job opportunities.
ALLEN-DE-GENEROUS 