It’s funny to think that witches, vampires and ghosts were once the cream of horror’s crop — their teeth yellow, their fingers long, their voices low. But the real world has rendered a sense of doom that lives off screen, and those once-fearsome ghouls have been replaced by things more insidious. In Get Out, it’s systemic racism; in Us, it’s privilege; in Midsommar, it’s grief. In each of these cases, the psychological and social terrors of modern life infect the films’ protagonists, spreading beneath the surface of their world. It’s an awful lot like a parasite — which brings us to the latest thriller (and winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival) from South Korean director Bong Joon Ho, who explored similar territory with 2013’s incomparable Snowpiercer and 2014’s Sea Fog.
In Parasite, Bong zeroes in on two families. The working-class Kims, who fold pizza boxes to survive, live in a small, bug-infested basement where the only way to steal a few minutes of WiFi is by standing on the toilet. The family’s luck takes a turn when son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) is visited by a friend who is headed abroad, and asks if Ki-woo would like to take over his job as tutor to the daughter of the Park family — who have so much wealth they don’t quite know what to do with it.
As one who lives in the absence of wealth, Ki-woo is keenly cognizant of the Parks’ privilege, and he has each member of his family replace the Park family’s staff in short order: His sister Ki-jung (Park So-dam) becomes an art therapist to the son; his father Ki-taek (legendary Korean actor Song Kang-ho) becomes the new driver; his mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) becomes the new maid. The Kims make themselves at home among the Parks, who have no idea their new staff is related — much less that their own insulating privilege has allowed them to be handily manipulated.
When Ki-taek says of the Park matriarch, “She’s rich, but still nice,” his wife quickly corrects him: “She’s nice because she’s rich. … Rich people are naive, no resentments, no creases on them. Money is an iron, those creases get smoothed out.”
It’s a sentiment that speaks to the way the world has always been; the disparity has only grown more obvious as the wealth gap has widened. Consider, for example, Ellen DeGeneres — a very rich comedian and talk-show host who has built her brand on being very nice — who recently defended her friendship with George W. Bush by encouraging us to “be kind to one another,” even those whose beliefs may differ from our own. It was a simplistic, performative argument bolstered by million-dollar privilege.
A similar veneer allows the first half of Parasite to be a delightful, comic fantasy. But the gun soon goes off, and the Kims are bitten by a parasite of their own, spinning the story into horrific territory, violent and devastating. Suddenly, it becomes clear that the Kims do not fit where they thought they could. Not with the way they dress, the way they talk, the way they smell — the last of which Mr. Park casually notes, recalling why he no longer chooses to take the subway, lest he have to plug his nose all the way home. It’s clear that no matter how well they blend in, it’s impossible for the Kims to climb the social ladder without facing massive obstacles. Society was built to keep them down and their counterparts up.
Time and again, the Parks’ judgment is met with the Kims’ resentment, both insidious. The Kims have an insatiable hunger. The Parks are so glutted that they turn away third, fourth and fifth helpings. And a very familiar monster lurks beneath the surface of their interactions.
A masterful commentary on class, Parasite issues a new guideline for contemporary horror: Forget visiting the basement alone. It’s upstairs where your fears reside.
