Parasite: The worst symbiotic relationship told the best way
- Julie
- Jul 21, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 16, 2024
“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
There is this common saying "Art will die the moment it is explained." This is why my piece of writing on one of the best pieces of cinematic art is not going to be explanatory or investigatory or even an interpretation. It will be the one and only product of the squealing doors of my essence that this movie has dared to take a look into. Is this a way of hiding my true intentions for this movie in this piece of writing? No. Is this a confession? No. It’s stupid, but it’s human, and that’s how it is (yes, yes I looked up GoodReads for "it is what it is quotes" ,thank you very much)
Quick summary: Everyone is each other's parasite. And parasitism in nature never ends in a win win win.
Why though?
Why are there a million reviews analyzing this movie in every form imagined to find the answer to "why this movie..."?? Notice the three dots, that is the why. The movie has massive impacts on every single individual who watched it. However, we can never ever EVER say that it has the same big fat effect for everyone. In fact, quite the opposite, its small and penetrating effects on each person deepen that well of interpretations for more and more people to get lost in every day. How did I dome to the conclusion that its effect for every human being is uniquely beautiful? Because it has every thing a modern film can possibly capture. From horror scenes to cheesy jokes, from sexuality to hardcore drama, from tragedy to romance; every theme you can imagine. It uses powerful motifs, camera techniques, color palettes, montages. It touches upon classes, parasitism, despair, wealth through food, clothing, windows, invisible lines, tables, toilet escalations, little bugs... It is a capture of lives through lives for lives told for lives to live life. I believe that the moments we feel alive are those we find the reflections of ourselves in our memories rather than abstract ideas of personalities in our brains. And I believe that the movies we adore are those we can firmly get a good grasp of from any point. Too literary? Maybe. Parasite is that rope you can hold onto from wherever you want whenever you want until infinity.
Symbiosis and other relationships
Parasitism, for those who do not know, is a symbiotic relationship in which one side benefits and other side suffers. I strongly believe that many of you who have seen the movie (seen? rather binged on it but still) understood the main reason why it is named Parasite. However, I want to dig deeper into the relationships in the movie to really give the worth the title deserves.
The Kim Family vs The Park Family
The most obvious one is the first one to investigate. It is quite understandable, the young boy of the poor family(Kims) stumbles over a very good opportunity and gets access into the palace of Parks. He uses his practical and cynical mind to first get a job for her sister for the Park family, later his father and last their mother. Story line is pretty gripping, right? I will tell you why, Rocky training montage. For those of you who are not familiar with it, you can watch the scene by clicking here . You see, Parasite uses a similar montage, the montage of one group of organisms slowly settling in another organism. It is extended with symbols, dinner scenes, character talks and such but in essential it has the montage structure. This structure gives the movie its original hook.
Wealthy vs Poor
Although this one is told through the two families, it should be investigated separately. In nature, parasitism is a very delicate relationship because the parasite should not over exploit its host organism. I believe that use of lines separating the two families from each other at the narrowest and most private places are there for that: for the limits the parasites should not cross to be provided with all the resources they want. However, it becomes quite obvious that they want more each time they make progress into the essence of their food source, the Parks. They even replace their roles when the Park family goes on a trip. This powerfully represents the hungriness of human beings to everything and turning all primal when it comes to consuming. Yet eventually they face the awful truth: it is not only them who are exploiting the source. With this amazing plot twist, another relationship enters the equation: competition.
The Kim family vs Geun-se and Moon-gwang
Competition is a form of ecological relationship in which both organisms are harmed. It is inevitable as soon as the groups within a population or two different organisms coincide at one basic life source; whether it is food, water, area or reproduction. Competition can be intraspecific or interspecific . Intraspecific competition happens between the individuals of the same population whereas interspecific one happens between two different populations/ organisms who have the same niche. As the
Kim family "secures" their way into this exciting life with through a montage, everything is perfect. It is quite similar in ecology: until a new species with same niche (lifestyle habits) comes into the area, everything is perfect for one population. It is not long after their short victory over wealth that they realize another group of organisms are also using the same place for similar reasons. There is a definite interspecific competition after the encounter of the both sides. The question is why is not intraspecific, aren't they both financially struggling? Here is the hidden beauty of this interaction Hoo has created, poor is not always the same poor. Whether Hoo has done it intentionally or I just made it way complicated than it is, it gives meaning to the movie by strengthening its structure and messages.
There are many other interactions happening in the movie between Mr and Mrs. Park or between the young Kim boy and Park girl. However, I have listed the backbone relationships that really add a new layer to the movie.
Symbols: how to remind the audience none of this is real
If you have already made a mediocre research on the movie before reading this review(hope you did), then it is likely that you have realized the amount of emphasis reviewers put on the symbolism in the movie. To me, symbols are reminders; reminders of the absurdness and imagination in the movie. All in all, we are definitely convinced that the events happening in the movie are quite realistic but in movies we can lose the line between realistic and real. This is why Parasite uses symbols.
In reality, there are no such things as symbols; we as humans create them in our minds with support from reality. Bong Joon Ho does the same thing; he creates a scenario that can happen in real life but adds these symbols like rocks, Indian costumes and toys, smell of poor people etc. to create a pattern that whispers to us "This is a piece of art." I find symbolism in Parasite very effective at creating the ultimate movie atmosphere: realism with reminders of movie realm.
Conclusion: Creating a story out of unhappiness
When we finished the movie as a family at night, I had only one thing in mind: how did he do this? This question was of course devoted to the director, Bong Joon Ho; I could not believe that every element was so carefully put, every scene so precisely designed, every talk has a purpose yet there is not a single distraction in the flow. I thought to myself "What a story!" and that was when I realized it, the secret behind the magic. It was a story which was well-nourished with dissatisfaction, poverty, loneliness, despair, loss, anger, greed. It reminded me of why we read literature, watch movies, go to theatre: to see conflict and at some point, unhappiness. No one I know of wants to see people living their best lives in a movie. For me, this film was turning back to the basics of art with all its structural, literary and aesthetic elements. Creating something this powerful with tons of complex and compatible elements yet leaving the viewer so satisfied and peaceful; this my friends is called art.
Note: I also want to give a shoutout to Hong Kyung-pyo, cinematographer of this wonderful movie, from the bottom of my heart because he found the best visuals to reflect the flawless story line.
If your standards were so high after seeing Parasite, try these out:
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