The Initial Scene
Parasite, as the separation and reflection’s criticism, has a vital point of such theme. After almost unraveling their motives in the specific scene, the Ki Taek family returned home down the stairs to their slum. They found where their home and other homes of neighbors also had been overwhelmed. Ki Taek tries to save what he can save. Ki Woo is just looking at a family heirloom, an inheritance stone with no value other than which.
However, Ki Jung just tried to sit on the toilet seat while holding a toilet full of shit. She picks up a pack of cigarettes from the roof of the house. The snap she just sat on tells us what the bathroom, the internet, and the smartphone mean. Back in the early scene at the beginning of the film, it bounds so many such metaphors. In the initial scene, Ki Woo and Ki Jung try to find their Wi-Fi network signal of neighbors to watch a tutorial on how to fold pizza wrappers.
Small yet significant benefits will continue interpretively if this family always enjoys the different most minor things in general. But, what is it they never always take the slightest consequence? What does it mean by a heritage stone? What about cigarettes, the next Ki Taek plan, exploitation to achieve a symbiosis of parasitism, and guide character by character?
The Substance
For the Ki Taek family, only looking for a Wi-Fi signal or folding pizza wrappers could generate huge profits on the lookout. They use the most minor advantage socially, figuratively, and analogously. The same with the first scene of Parasite opens with the socks hanging from the ceiling of the house. People pass by so many places, as in Ki Taek and his family’s low position; even peeing on the street is no insult to them.
It highlights their journey from the stairs to the stairs and from the lines to the lines. It is not difficult if the social divide between the rich and the poor is a tenet. Bong Joon-ho enjoys exploring the substance of class differences, social criticism, acid Marxism, and social inequalities. Whether horizontally, vertically, or even diagonally, he tapped such criticism through Mother and Snowpiercer.
While it did not sound new, the films about social inequality or Marxism, Parasite‘s separation and reflection’s criticism, on the other hand, shape the world from above, from the middle, and the bottom with limitless contravention. The world from above downwards is a social segregation story about the meaning of groups, prejudices, propaganda, and social status.
The Secondary Substance
Whether through horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines, it is a characteristic if Parasite describes the up and down in an everyday world of human-like reality. They are not on the edge of a floating ship, dividing their position and strata based on material. It is also not in the middle of nowhere where position and status are everything. It is about how the capitalist turns clockwise, a wheel, a car tire, etc.
They are in all directions, whether forward or backward and up or down. Once again discussed in the Parasite separation and reflection’s criticism as a secondary substance: visuals and metaphors are a mainstay and a force. In describing the elements of the nested symbiosis between the unconscious and consciousness, a complete metaphor of framing is often not presented clearly through a text.
The Horror Revelation
Whether in The Truman Show, Modern Times, or Metropolis, the revelation of the horror is not always gory, mortality, cruel class battles, threats, and declarations of tragedy over humor. Economic affairs is a survivalist game of life and death; how the end determines the character decides to take the consequences. It is indeed not a taboo subject for representations of Asian cinema.
There are Shoplifters, Secret Sunshine, A Brighter Summer Day, The Human Condition, and others. Although they carry various class portraits with many differences, they are fraught with economic issues.
The Visual
Asian movies, and of course movies, have complete similarities, namely total and dense with economic issues. However, for tension and resistance between the upper, middle, and lower classes, Parasite is very frontal in its theme as separation and reflection’s criticism. One place presented the conflict of inequalities from beginning to end of the film. Dong Ik’s house becomes a house plan between the dumbest within the smartest and the smartest within the dumbest.
The Ki Taek family plays their respective characters to respond and frame for the Dong Ik family. English teachers, cultural arts teachers, drivers, housekeepers, and more are ways for Bong Joon-ho to set a tone for true human coexistence. Privacy is a paper relationship between parasitism steps as a bee and a flower to take such material for selfishness’ sake. It has become an intense interaction so that we can tie the circles up and down.
The Class Odors
Be a foundation between them. Influence is not just an appearance matter. Feelings, instincts, smell, semblance, and action determine each scene. Indeed, Parasite retains a pungent odor of people who have experienced a disaster to lower class odors; the foul term is for the poor. However, this is all an interpretation of the definition of smell itself. The stairs and the dungeon are also exhibited to explore if the two lower classes’ battles frequently occurred.
It is not a matter of metaphor that the upper-class are never aware of it. Humans themselves are always beyond what they see. They do not even realize they have tiptoed to the people below. Regardless, what is the definition of an inferior and superior person if we do not look at what is visible and abstract? The metaphor is an invasion of who is an immigrant and who owns the house.
Is it true that accuracy and metaphor alone can determine who most deserves the term? It is easy but complicated. Still, we cannot determine who is wrong and who is right. There is no response at all.
The Metaphor
Playing metaphors is not a difficult thing because artists and critics are opposing the appetite. Whether people call abstract art a masterpiece or an unwanted work, there is nothing wrong or right. More precisely, the image of the monkey is a metaphorical play in Parasite. Some call it a monkey picture, a self-portrait, is just a crumpled image with no value or essence, which is a waste of time.
The nature of the metaphor itself is not often such or metaphorically. Involved is also a metaphor relation word but has the same meaning. The Parasite separation and reflection’s criticism has a cliché feel when conveying ideas and conclusions from start to finish. The essence of the message is how the character sees the character as a character. It is also about the pretense that is structured in such a way by the characters.
Allegory
The functioning of this “character” is not much different from that of humans in general. Human impressions and images of all things may change depending on the situation. Either the rich find it easier to see and be seen by humans, or the poor too. However, is it not the border of reality between class and perspective, too different from every human being’s competence? For example, a person can only appear intelligent by speaking English to ordinary people.
Regardless, he does not speak English well in general. How the cues will play and act is the occupied notable theme, but only change the quality of the human image in the first place. In reality, humans are only afraid of being caught.
The Straight Line
This game of fear of getting caught also melts and breaks the line between empathy and sympathy, even if people know straight away who deserves the pity. On the other hand, visual and abstract statements are ambiguous. In conclusion, looks and the first impression are the most important things right from the start when humans want to empathize with others. Skill and warmth can not be measured by how many awards Bong Joon-ho has received for this movie.
The emphasis is also heavily similar to humans. They have to pretend to be humans in their group. This dehumanization does not apply to its contemporaries but to any individual who tries to end himself indirectly. This humanity feels entirely lost. The chains of the lower classes at the top would never break themselves. After all, no plan is also a plan. The probability for each individual to make a connection between connections measured human inequality.
Bibliography
- Abercrombie, N. (1980). Class, structure and knowledge: Problems in the sociology of knowledge. London: Blackwell.
- Matthews, J. (2020). Movie Review: Parasite. Digital Collections @ Dordt.
- Ossowski, S. (2003). Class structure in the social consciousness. Taylor & Francis.