Parasite

The wonder of Parasite is that its plot never reveals who the bloodsuckers are: both the poor and rich families of the film need each other to exist. The Kim family needs the money they’ve earned by exploiting the Parks in order to stay afloat in their sub-basement apartment, where they are stuck between the hell of the street outside their window and the heavenly open greens of the Park’s neighborhood; on the other side, the Parks couldn’t function without the Kims in addressing the basic necessities of their lives. The film says that the poor and rich must give and take from each other. When they invade each other’s designated social space, however, this symbiosis deteriorates quickly; as the poor Kims try to role-play life as the rich Parks, their lives take a quick trip into the macabre and tragic.

Parasite is remarkable for its willingness to jump from genre to genre, from hilarious social commentary to horror to thriller and finally to profound humanism. The early scenes exhibited the best elements of a Marxian (Groucho, not Karl) rapid-fire satire, with each character of the Kims gleefully diving into their family’s con games, while the final moments of the film reminded me of the great endings of De Sica films, especially in how there is such profound and misplaced hope found even in the darkest despair of the film’s denouement. All anyone wants to do is to succeed, for their own sake and for their family’s, always reaching higher than their social or economic stations – human beings are sold that ideal everyday of their lives. If only the right opportunities can present themselves at the correct times, then anyone can become exulted and rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Who are the Parks to succeed where the Kims do not? Can we blame the Kims, then, when they try to tip the odds in their favor for once?