This Oscar winning movie directed by Bong Joon-ho tells a story about a lower-class family (the Kims) in South Korea who is able to fool a wealthy class-family (the Parks) to employ them.  The Parks have no idea that the Kims are related, and the Kims try their best to keep these lucrative jobs amongst the seemingly brutal job market in Seoul.  This move is put together beautifully and is entertaining the whole way through.  What really makes this movie phenomenal is the way it is able to expose and exemplify the polarizing differences between the lower and upper classes.  While this movie takes place on South Korea, the socioeconomic disparities and hardships can be made relatable to people across the world.  Some of the conditions the Kims have to face are brutal and unjust.

The main issue that was explored in this film is how the extremely wealthy and the lower class interact with each other.  The funny thing is the first time I watched this movie I thought the name ‘Parasite’ referred to the lower class family relying on the wealthy family for a steady source of income, but now I think it represents this wealthy family needing the Kims to get through everyday life.  This seems to be a purposeful message conveying how in a capitalist society the rich rely heavily on the mass majority (the lower and middle classes).  As the movie progresses I noticed more and more how inhumane the Park family treated the Kims at specific instances.  There were blatant examples showing how the Park parents treated the Kims as less important than their family.

This movie invokes Aijaz Ahmad’s ideas of the self and the other.  The differences in status of the Kim and Park family create a divided sense of the self and the other.  At the beginning of the movie it is clear that the Kims view their family as the “self” and the Parks as the naïve “other” that they are able to trick for their own benefit, and throughout the entirety of the movie the Parks view their family as the “self”, and the Kims as the “other”—merely a group of people that make their lives more convenient and structured.  However, once the Kims have worked for the Parks for a substantial amount of time, the Kims (particularly the father) start to feel othered by the Parks; some of the conclusions they seem to come to are that the Parks are only nice because they are wealthy and that the Parks view them solely as servants and employees.

I do not want to spoil any part of this movie, but I would like to point out that there are large pieces of this film (including the conflicts that occur when there is greed and fear involved) that I have not addressed; watching this film will without a doubt keep you interested the whole way through.  I think you can get the most out of this movie if you think about the issues, relationships, and identities being addressed while watching it.

An interior pic of the Kim’s house

An Interior Pic of the Park’s House