Film sensation "Parasite": Criticism of capitalism for all the senses

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Of all sensory perceptions, smell is probably the most irrelevant in the cinema. Because there's no visual way to do that, and even the Scratch'n'Sniff Cards, which in 1981, for example, John Waters olfactorily extended his film "polyester" (a scent field for rose scent, one for fart stench) are not a permanent solution , But also because smells are something very personal. They evoke highly individual associations and memories, so there is little that can be said about them.

In "Parasite", Bong Joon-ho now manages to make the smell play a crucial role in his story, as well as to give it a social dimension. Criticism of capitalism for all senses: nothing less succeeds the South Korean director and author here.

In Cannes, he already convinced the jury, who unanimously awarded him the Golden Palm. In the meantime, tens of millions of people have seen the film in South Korea, and in the US it's just the best start ever for a foreign-language film, and is considered a favorite for the newly designated international Oscar, if not the best film nominee.

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The critique of capitalism for all the senses may sound unsatisfactorily abstract at first, but in the case of Parasite, it is best to leave it with some basic remarks and not reveal any details. First, because they would spoil the crazy fun that this movie with its many surprises holds ready. For another, because Bong staged so masterfully effectively that no detail runs the risk of being overlooked. The peach, the tepee, the flickering lamps: all these things you will experience in the course of "Parasite" - and yet be astounded when finally reveals their true purpose.

The film takes its starting point in a cellar hole in Seoul. Here live the Kims, a family of four, whose money is not enough for the study of their adult children, nor for a decent accommodation. For temporary jobs, the Kims (led by Song Kang-ho as a despondent patriarch) seem to have no talent, but all the more for imposture: First, son Ki-woo (Cho Woo-sik) as a private tutor with presumed university diploma in the rich Park family, then the rest of the family follows him into the luxurious washed concrete villa.

Stacking can be understood literally, because while the Kims live in a low-lying district of Seoul, the parks are perched on a hill. As a flood floods the poorest dwellings in the city and thus also the apartment of the Kims with water, the parks get nothing from it. For "sheep in the dry" there seems to be a correspondence in Korean as well.

"Parasite"
Original title: "Gisaengchung"
South Korea 2019
Written and directed by Bong Joon-ho
Performers: Song Kang-ho, Park So-dam, Cho Woo-sik, Jang Hye-jin, Lee Sun-kyun, Jo Yeo-jeong, Lee Jeong-eun
Production: Barunson E & A et al.
Rental: cooking films
Length: 132 minutes
FSK: from 16 years
Theatrical release: 17 October 2019

It is, of course, the political weather situation that captures Bong in his pictures of overcrowded shelters on the one hand and an airy, minimalist eat-in kitchen in which a housekeeper prepares short-roasted beef on request, on the other. His theme is social division, and his attitude to it is anger.

However, he does not put a burden on the parks and Kims to be proxies for downers or above, for exploiters or exploited. They are fighters in their own right, as capitalism dictates, and can therefore be ruthless without immediately denouncing their class.

And they are ruthless. Not least among each other: When the Kims are still trying to keep afloat with a legal backup job like folding pizza boxes, it's a similarly precarious employee of a delivery service that withholds their pay: they simply would not have folded the boxes exactly enough.

In the video: The trailer for "Parasite"

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Cooking Films

From such bitter-black humor, "Parasite" is steeped to its bloody end. At the same time, the suspense of a thriller builds up when who discovers who has deceived him.

Bong has previously avoided making simple genre assignments with films like Snowpiercer or The Host. Here he proves now that - contrary to the reactionary criticism of political correctness and "woke culture" - unsparing wit and time-critical commentary must not be mutually exclusive: it only needs better filmmakers, who are more precise in the analysis and more astute in their cinematic implementation.

Filmmakers like Bong Joon-ho, who are so sovereign about the means of the cinema that it tickles us even in the nose.