She is easily deceived by Ki-jeong's framing of the Park family chauffeur as explained by Dong-ik. Bong shows us this vision: Ki-taek ascends the bunker stairs and embraces his son. TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE FILM PLEASE!*. Blood is shed and deaths are cast at the birthday party of the Park familys youngest child. Mr Kim is visibly affected, even sniffing his own shirt. Bong Joon-ho 's masterful film Parasite is a wicked and brutal satire about wealth disparity. Ex-housekeeper Moon-kwang claims that she had left something important behind in the basement and was there to collect it. The record-setting trend continued for the Parasite film. Not affiliated with Harvard College. The social commentary of "Parasite" leads tochaos, but it never feels like a didactic message movie. Bong Joon-ho displays a mastery over genres and tones with this mid-point shift. The Kims return to find that their apartment has flooded with sewage water and try to rescue whatever valuables they can, including the fortune rock gifted to Ki-woo. Subscribe for more filmmaking videos like this. The script for Parasite will get a ton of attention as its one of those clever twisting and turning tales for which the screenwriter gets the most credit (Bong and Han Jin-won, in this case), but this is very much an exercise in visual language that reaffirms Bong as a master. Outside of the sub-basement, violence erupts, and the prophetic scholars stone becomes an instrument of violence. Although it does not seem likely, Ki-Woo claims he will get admission into an elite university and marry Da-Hye. Director Bong Joon-Ho himself has described Parasite as a cross-genre film, dipping its toes into the regions of dark comedy, satire, thriller and family drama. As with great stories, every seeming-antagonist has their own reasons for doing what they do, making it nearly impossible to clearly identify an antagonist as we sympathise with their actions. He deciphers a message, delivered in Morse code via a flickering light, that his father now inhabits the bunker. Parasite catapulted him to a different level of fame, earning him not only the first Academy Award for Best Picture to go to an international film, but also a unanimously-decided-upon Palme d'Or at Cannes. Each family has a symbiotic relationship with one another; the Parks need their employees to keep their house and family up and running, and the Kims and Moon-kwangs family leech off the wealth of the Parks. More books than SparkNotes. She is the archetype of the mistress of a wealthy household: glamorous, naive, and good at wielding power with feminine grace. as an art student at a middle-class family. The film begins with the Kim family at home in their tiny, cramped basement apartment. There are plenty of examples of subtle foreshadowing all throughout this opening act that circle back around by the end of the film. A tonal shift this extreme could easily take viewers out of the film or feel like a jumping-the-shark moment, but in the hands of Bong Joon-ho, this shift is portrayed in a way that not only feels effortless but greatly enhances each half of the film that preceded and follows it. Ki-woo and his sister Ki-jung forge credentials for the job, and thus begins the long-con that sees each member of the Kim family infiltrating the upper-class Park family one-by-one. One clear way to explain the movie is: Parasite is about class. Class is the primary target of social commentary within Parasite. Read the script for the award-winning foreign film and analyze all week. What ensues is a sneaky ploy on the Kim familys part to slowly insert themselves into the lives (and house) of the Park family as they attempt to build a better life for themselves. She is very nice, but not especially deep or compassionate. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. It is one of the most effective satires in recent memory. The only thing I can think of is that the original housekeeper was in contact with the original tutor of the family. Official Screenwriting Blog of The Black List. Ki-jeongs death was also foreshadowed when she was the only one who got injured in the process of hiding their house party from the Parks as they returned from their failed camping trip. There are plenty of subtle, comedic moments in the film that gave me a good chuckle, and some even managed to get a LOL from me. Parasites ending features a sequence of Ki-woos plan to work hard, buy the house under which his own father now hides, and reunite the family but this plan is nothing but a fantasy. However, things went downhill from there. As we enter the house, we see that the same design sensibilities are used the house has plenty of wide, open spaces and minimalistic furniture. Ki-woo cant seem to let go of the decorative rock, a symbol of his constant yearning for stability. As with every film, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so my interpretation here may be different from yours. With a run-time of 2hrs 15mins that you would barely notice due to the amazing pacing of the film, the film moves seamlessly through its different genres and settings without missing a beat. The Kim father and children quickly take cover as Mrs Kim decides to let Moon-kwang in. You would think that maybe before you hire someone else, you stop to think if maybe your household staff is disappearing faster than usual? Watching the poor family leave their cramped semi-basement home to overtake the. I just felt that frankness was right for the film, even though it's sad." Parasite study guide contains a biography of Bong Joon-ho, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. She takes great pride in her work as a housekeeper, and loses her job unexpectedly after the Kims make her peach allergy look like active tuberculosis. The Parks go on a camping trip for Da-song's birthday, leaving the house empty. Mrs Kim calling Mr Kim a cockroach, which we all understand is a relentless survivor that not only 1) runs and hides at signs of danger, but also 2) is literally a parasitic insect that doesnt contribute to the ecosystem. GradeSaver, 21st Century Haves, Haves-not: Bong Joon-Ho's Commentary on Contemporary Class Divide in Parasite. The young man changes his name to Kevin and begins tutoring Park Da-hye (Jung Ziso), who immediately falls for him, of course. Characters from Parasite (2019). Parasite essays are academic essays for citation. As she scurries into the basement escorted by Mrs Kim, the rest of the Kims-in-hiding surreptitiously follow. On to the in-depth analysis! I would LOVE to hear from other viewers on their theories on the film, so please feel free to share them with me. Hes going to get his whole family into this house. Ki-jeong is not only the brains in the family who sets the entire scam operation in motion, she is also pegged by Ki-woo the most likely to succeed in her family as he mentions that Ki-jeong fits in the best at the Parks residence, hinting at her potential for success, but perhaps also foreshadowing her death on the residence grounds. Parasite Analysis: Navigating the Shift At its exact mid-point, Parasite undergoes a massive tonal shift. What is Mumblecore? I interpreted the fortune rock as a satirical symbol of the Kim familys burdens and guilt at the circumstances, literally weighing down Ki-woo and revealing his presence as he drops it when sneaking up on Moon-kwang and her husband. Follow along with the Parasite script as StudioBinder is used to recreate what the actual script breakdown may have looked like. Parasite broke a number of financial records as well, including the highest foreign film opening weekend of all time for the UK box office, and a number of records with the Indie Box Office. Bong has made several films about class (including "Snowpiercer" and "Okja"), but Parasite may be his most daring examinationof the structural inequity that has come to define the world. Parasite has a lot worthy of analysis and it has a lot to say. The Parks suddenly call, informing Mrs Kim that they would be arriving home in 8 minutes. He spoils his son and is rather alienated from his desires and happiness. Hence my principle: Character = Function. The cinematography was also amazing. It perfectly encapsulated each moment of the film, whether it was absurdist humour, dark humour, escalating tension, or setting the tone for future revelations. Personality cool and cynical. Its no accident that the lower-class protagonists happen to have the single most common surname in South Korea. This secret basement reveals an even lower level of status below what we had thought was the floor with the Kim family. Through the analysis of the audio-visual language of the movie, this article starts with the storytelling of Parasite, enumerates and analyses the elements that appear in the movie to reflect the gap between the rich and poor. The patriarch of the Kim family. After waking up in the hospital, he and his mother are charged and put on probation. Here are our rankings of the most intelligent and least intelligent characters. She is brusque and unsentimental like her daughter, toughened by life in poverty. She is also too easily swayed by Ki-taek's fakery of Moon-gwang's supposed tuberculosis diagnosis. It's a movie of extraordinary cunning and devastating . Mr Park yells for Mr Kim to throw him the car keys, which unfortunately get stuck under Moon-kwangs husbands body as he falls. Husband! as they descend into the depths of the bunker also do nothing to alleviate the building tension as we shockingly discover that her husband is in fact a mole person hiding and living right under the Parks noses and supplied food by Moon-kwang regularly, who even worships Mr Park for providing him with food and accommodation. More books than SparkNotes. GradeSaver, 21st Century Haves, Haves-not: Bong Joon-Ho's Commentary on Contemporary Class Divide in Parasite. For a full deep-dive analysis into how the themes of Parasite were previously tackled in Bong Joon-hos other films, check out this video essay on the subject: The Kim family may be below the Parks in status, but even they can look down on Moon-gwang and her husband. The characters are a reason for the success and we've ranked how smart they are. Your email address will not be published. Once the entire Kim family is employed in the Park household, the lower-class con-artists begin to assume more and more of this fabricated identity of wealth. Thats all for my in-depth analysis! In our Parasite movie analysis video, this mid-point scene was the focus. Moon-kwang reveals that a large cabinet in the basement is actually hiding the entrance to a secret underground bunker, where her husband (Park Myung-hoon) had been living in secret the past few years. Let me know if, like me, you wanted to re-watch the film from the top immediately after it ended. Small things, such as the Kim family opening their windows as their neighbourhood is fumigated in order to rid their own apartment of pests, or drunkards that liked to piss on their basement windows at night, were double-edged jokes that combined absurdist humour with sly details of the familys desperation and socio-economic plight. 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