Parasite (new Bong Joon Ho movie)

I took the ending to be the revolutionary dream: to seize power and pull up the poor. The fact that it only exists in the mind of someone who is brain damaged isn’t great.

Or perhaps not. I guess he gets there within the system. (Sorry, baked)

(Ignore that, makes no sense)

i think parasite's ending is a massive bummer (the kid is never going to actually get the money to buy the house and the proletariat will never seize power from the bourgeoisie) but there's the hint of "if you can dream it, it's not impossible" in both. I mean, we do actually see them getting back together again!

yeah I took that scene to be a hallucination - "the best plan is no plan" and all that.

And I haven't seen it mentioned much but I also think Jessica/Ki Jung's death just underscored the hopelessness of it all. If there was anyone in that family that was going to make it, it would have been her.

the ending is a bummer because even if it's not a daydream, the entire movie has been about how a lifestyle like the park family's can only be achieved through the exploitation of others - if ki-woo does buy the house, it's a sign that he's become a more effective parasite, nothing more

agreed with all that.

idk anything about korean (or specifically s korean) culture but is the genuflection to the park family part of a commentary on a cultural block against collective action by the working class against the rich? (similar to american exceptionalism/bootstraps ideology)?

genuflection seems like it's required in these types of jobs for these types of people - when you work directly for someone who can fire you on a whim, better to err on the side of genuflection, particularly when you're working paycheque to paycheque

mr park being impressed by mr kim's ability to 'not cross the line' seems instructive

thinking more on the ending, it also highlights how difficult it is for people to think their way out of the system - all ki-woo can do is dream about being a beneficiary of the system rather than envision an alternative

Yeah, after all that's happened and all that he's seen, he's been conditioned to embrace capitalism and materialist aspiration.

That was exactly my reading of it, which plays into the doppleganger idea as well.

wrt the genuflection, I'd need to watch it again but there might be something there in terms of the previous owner being an architect (a great man who builds solid but beautiful things) and Mr Park being...well, I'm not sure what, I might have missed it but I thought he was some kind of executive at a firm called Another Brick. I couldn't decide if that name sounded more like tech or real estate, both would be apt

when we see him in his office he's looking at some kind of vr headset with his colleagues so i assumed tech

The elitist inscrutability of the Park’s work, thoughtless consumption, emotional fecklessness and their general stupidity are all intended to show the lack of meritocracy in the system i thought

I'm not sure I'd describe them as "generally" stupid, but I'd have to think about it. Min's emphasis on Mrs. Park being "simple" kept popping into my head throughout.

I do think there's a pretty basic "stages of capitalism" metaphor in the house being built/owned by a genius architect and then by a guy who makes VR

And then pretenders literally occupying the space!

the basicness of the metaphors are one of the best aspects of the movie imo - like yeah it's a great twisty morality tale, sure, but its underlying message is as subtle as a rock specimen to the back of the head

loved the cold read scene when 'Jessica' asks if something happened to the kid in first grade

the flooding scene was well done too.

that was amazing and it's wild that it was a big set!

lol at this wildly misleading french poster

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKSMJR0XUAAXnlR?format=jpg&name=small

"oh, so it's like a generation family comedy, like Family Matters!"

Min's emphasis on Mrs. Park being "simple" kept popping into my head throughout.

I wonder about the word used originally. ‘Simple’ is a complicated word.

target audience for goop products imo

I first thought he meant 'simple' as in 'dumb', but as she developed later, I just took it more to mean "gullible and naive".

she's not a dumb woman, but way too willing to fall for ruses.

but right, the translation might also impact that

uncritical acceptance of anything that speaks to specific class markers

i like that it's never really explained why mrs park is slumped across the garden table unconscious when ki-woo goes to visit for the first time - just a weird unsettling little detail

I guess she’s not allowed to be a real person, to the point of inaction when her husband isn’t around.

presumed it was cause she was drunk?

or sure: just valium-era US housewife not there

she's doing something that a rich person would do: sitting in her beautiful garden while well dressed

it's the first clue that she doesn't really have anything to do, and when it's shown that her role is to make sure the right people are doing the right things for her children, it's all signifiers

yeah, it's most likely some kind of quiet substance abuse but it seemed a bit more strange on my first viewing because it comes right after she's been described as 'simple' - like what's really going on here

I figured it was equally possible she's just incredibly bored

I thought it was supposed to indicate she was struggling with depression or possibly mental illness.

i thought drunk and passed out at first, but that didn't really jibe with her character the rest of the movie.

could have definitely been tranquilizers, after all, she had to fill a tutor position, and an art teacher position and her husband may have been giving her shit about it (we never saw them much without the 'help' around, who knows what they were really like)

apparently they liked handjobs

i kept wondering if their kid was going to walk in from his tent while that was happening

no time to be horny when you're the underclass

when you're rich you can just be horny whenever

the mock disgust about their driver having sex in the car (and in THEIR SEAT) followed by a fantasy about that scenario!

which reveals that their earlier speculation + dismay about the scenario was in fact a personal sexual fantasy

One of the things that stuck with me was the little tease of the possibility of class solidarity, when it’s revealed that both husbands had worked at the same failed business. there were a few seconds where I thought there might be a mutual understanding, and then it all descends further into chaos.

I thought that was possible, but that was a trend in SK — there were a ton of cake shops of that type that saturated the market then went bust. And the original basement guy had borrowed cash from loan sharks to start a business, while Kim had only worked in one in his series of ephemeral jobs

the fact it isn’t followed so the fact there’s no follow-up means it likely was a different shop


https://blog.lewislee.net/2019/10/parasite-understanding-underlying-tragedy-of-taiwanese-cake-shop/

Fascinating.

sorry for zing malformatted post. I was eating lunch

I'm not sure if I agree with the blogger that Kim was aspiring to own something necessarily -- he seems like he's just working to make ends meet. Basement guy definitely was striving with his loan shark deal

yeah, it's most likely some kind of quiet substance abuse but it seemed a bit more strange on my first viewing because it comes right after she's been described as 'simple' - like what's really going on here

When Mr. and Mrs. Park were canoodling on the couch, she chants "Buy me drugs!" My theory is that she had been a bar girl when they met. She's not necessarily damaged by such a past, but she probably had not been very well educated and lucked into a good marriage.

it's a little hazy now but i thought that was her roleplaying being a lower-class woman?

yeah, they were speculating earlier in the movie about why a woman would have sex in the car and surmised that such a person would *have* to be on drugs

entire imaginary idea of their driver picking up a drug-addled loose woman or sex worker who he then had sex with in *their seat*

they were trying to figure out how one ends up leaving their underwear behind rather than like an earring

lol at this wildly misleading french poster

Mubi column on Parasite movie posters: https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/movie-poster-of-the-week-the-posters-of-parasite
On that "misleading" french poster:

Of all the French variants, however, this one got the most attention on social media until the French distributor—the aptly named The Jokers—revealed that the poster was made as a parody of French comedy posters, citing this montage as evidence: https://assets.mubi.com/images/notebook/post_images/29838/images-w1400.jpeg?1579571205

blue_and_yellow.xls

that's wonderful

i like the poster even more now