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In contrast is the Park’s family, living in a mansion, perched on top of a hill, from where they look “down” upon the city. As audiences, our eyes move “down” as we note the lives of Kim’s family - the underbelly of the city, living in a lower-ground level small, smelly, bug-infested flat, from where they see the world outwards and upwards. Parasite also brings the discussion of inequalities to the forefront through “sight”. Kim (and his children), hiding under the table, become privy to this conversation, and it is this comment more than the visible and tangible differences of financial status between them, which leaves a deep mark on Kim - a burning feeling of resentment, which propels him to later on commit a gruesome act. In another scene, Park while engaging in a physically intimate act with his wife, comments that Kim has a peculiar smell like those who ride the subway, and this smell is so strong that it seeps right to the back of their Mercedes Benz - an intimacy that he does not like.
PARASITE CITY CODES DRIVER
Park’s son, depicted as an able boy scout, comments that their driver (Kim), new housekeeper ( Kim’s wife), and tuition teachers (Kim’s children) all have the same “smell”. Rather, they identify and, therefore, demarcate their service class from themselves through their smell. Bong’s genius lies in the fact that unlike previous films on class, the rich do not utter the word “poor” or its synonyms to describe the class that is serving them. The Park family members are presented as privileged, entitled, and also “nice” people, who talk politely to their helps. From thereon, they are all interlocked in a web of dangerous intimacies. The Kim family is an unemployed bunch, aspiring to a comfortable life, and, in a fateful (later on, tragic) turn of events, they plot their way into the house and lives of the Park family. Instead, the director, Bong Joon-Ho, presents to us the everyday realities of inequalities through bodily senses, particularly of smell and sight.īong Joon-ho provides, at once comic, at once tragic, intersections between two families (same in size, each with four members) - the upper class Park family and lower class Kim family. Yet, what makes Parasite one of the most gripping tales of our times, quite apart from its brilliant cinematography and acting, is that though about money, this film does not trace differences between the rich and poor only through the prism of money. A saga of differences between the rich and the poor is in itself not a novel topic. In a world of growing inequalities, where the divide between the rich and poor is increasing, awarding Parasite as the Best Picture at the Oscars is befitting.