Parasite (2019) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction
Added 2025-02-19 17:45:02 +0000 UTCYes, another foreign film! I promise the third movie this week is not one, though! 😉 Thank you to Tyler Foster for the request on Reactr! I am so so so glad I didn't know anything about this movie before going into it. It was definitely not what I expected. [Direct link here.]
Looking forward to your comments! Please enjoy.
✦ KL
Comments
That was a fun reaction KL. I’m not sure there’s been a film for me this decade that has quite taken such a sharp left turn and then left me with no idea where it might go next. I thought the smell discussion was interesting. That wasn’t something I had overly thought about (beyond it being another sign that the Parks are completely removed/insulated from society) on my fist watch. Slight tangent, but I went to the Middle East and there was a soap dispenser next to my sink and it was a completely different scent than what you would expect as a Westerner. It had never occurred to me that the default scent for “clean” may differ by culture, but it made total sense. I always thought Ki-woo was very similar to his friend Min. Min’s dad likes Ki-woo. Min thinks enough about his intelligence and honour to ask him to tutor Da-hye. Da-hye develops a crush on him… if Ki-woo had been born into a different class of family why couldn’t he have Min’s life? He should be in university and getting an education instead of folding pizza boxes (badly) and inhaling fumigation. Which is why I think the ending is such a gut punch. We see him imagining buying the house and freeing his father, but then we return to see him back in a half basement, finishing his letter as snow falls, so clearly he’s imagining that day in the sun. Ki-woo’s motivations for obscene wealth are actually honourable. He doesn’t want to become rich out of greed or to marry well or for a comfortable life, his only goal is to buy the house and free his father. His father may deserve his fate, but for Ki-woo the motivation could not be stronger… and yet I think we know there is no chance it will happen. Someone in Ki-woo’s station in life can never be rich. Mr. Park talks a lot about “crossing a line” in relation to Ki-taek. And he means being too familiar with his boss, but the Kims can also never cross the line that separates them from the Parks. And it’s not that the Parks are better than the Kims — Ki-woo seems to be a fine tutor for Da-hye, Da-song is only well-behaved around Jessica, Mrs. Park is quite frankly a bit of an idiot — there just born with every advantage. Something that I think Boon Joon Ho addresses that hasn’t really been talked about is class solidarity. Both the Kims and Moon-gwang (the housekeeper and her husband) are both in incredibly desperate and when confronted with each other’s deceits they are at each other’s throats, unwilling to even consider helping each other. They are desperate to protect the crumbs the Parks are/were throwing them and are quite literally willing to kill each other to do so. The middles classes are always told to blame people worse off than them for their problems and never those that exploit them.
nouvelle_vague
2025-03-02 21:56:11 +0000 UTCWoo-hoo! Okay. One of the things I made a little reference to in my introduction was that the division between upper and lower classes was illustrated literally. The Kims don't just live in an apartment in a poor neighborhood, they live underground, down several stories of buildings and streets beneath the Parks. Even as one walks up the hill to the Park's garage, they must further ascend two staircases, outside to the outer door and then inside to the ground floor. When it floods, the water rolls down the hills, down the steps, into the Kim's half-basement, where it's filled with sewage...literal shit rolling downhill. And thus, while it's true that Mrs. Park may be smelling that sewage on him, she's also holding her nose because of something that happened because he has less than she does, all while she plans elaborate, expensive gift bags for all the guests of a party where everyone in attendance doesn't need more stuff. At the beginning of the movie, they're pumping bug spray into the neighborhood because it's got a stink bug infection. When the mom tells Ki Woo that she "added some [to Min's rate] for inflation," she is lying. Many miss it, but in the previous shot, she puts a certain amount of cash into an envelope, then pauses, and actually takes some of it out, so she is presumably paying Ki Woo less than what Min got and telling him it's more. The meal that Mrs. Park asks for, ram-don, is made from a combination of instant ramen -- the cheapest meal around -- and sirloin steak, which at the time was $40-50 in Korea. Much like the Parks later pretend when they're fooling around, imagining themselves as a lowly limo driver and his drug-addicted girlfriend (a scenario they made up on their own simply because Mr. Park found underwear in his car), ram-don is a great way for someone who can afford the meat to cosplay as poor college students slumming it on ramen. You may not be surprised to learn that Dr. Louks is ahead of you -- one of the examples in her paper used to support her thesis pulled from fiction is, in fact, Parasite. She mentioned it again in an article summarizing what her thesis was about, here: https://theconversation.com/my-research-on-the-politics-of-smell-divided-the-internet-heres-what-its-actually-about-245899 Also, if you have ever been asked to cite a movie with great CGI that you *really* don't even notice, here's a great example. The Park's house is only half real. The first story, with the living room and kitchen is real, but in any shot of the full house, the upper stories are completely computer generated. Furthermore, half of the trees in the outside garden are also added in digitally. In any case, I'm glad you enjoyed your second foreign-language feature. When Bong Joon Ho won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Feature, he remarked, "Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films." I'm pleased to hear that this was one of them for you.
Tyler Foster
2025-02-20 03:49:12 +0000 UTCCurrently in my list of fav movies of all time on #4. Masterpiece imo. Thanks Tyler!
Miles is Editing
2025-02-19 21:15:22 +0000 UTCooo this is a pleasant surprise. I have not watched this since it came out. I remember loving it. Will watch tonight.
RichieRich
2025-02-19 20:07:00 +0000 UTCTyler, you are a gentleman and a scholar, thank you for this. I cannot wait for this reaction.
nouvelle_vague
2025-02-19 20:04:29 +0000 UTCI should've been sus in the announcement when you said you couldn't guess what the 2019 one was LOL Great pick!
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2025-02-19 19:52:52 +0000 UTChidden figures, gotg3 and now this in the span of a week?? girl you are feeding us lol
Nabila Rahmani
2025-02-19 19:14:06 +0000 UTCOh, HELL YES. This gon' be gooood... 🍿
Nestor Custodio
2025-02-19 19:05:51 +0000 UTCThis is such a good one I can’t wait to get home and watch! Also love doing another international movie!
codenamewitch xx
2025-02-19 18:35:32 +0000 UTCOh man I remember watching this. So many tone shifts. Comedy, Action, Horror, Drama all in one.
Christopher simeon
2025-02-19 17:52:52 +0000 UTCNow just to count down the hours until I can go home from work and watch this!
Tyler Foster
2025-02-19 17:47:19 +0000 UTC
