Timely and poignant

Rating: 9/10 (16 March 2020)

Bong Joon-ho's Parasite takes on the age-old theme of wealth and poverty and human fate and what a take it is. Artistically powerful and captivating, it throws the viewer into the middle of a very modern and ugly problem: stark wealth inequality and how an individual's life is worth only the size of his wallet. Yet, the film shows how fragile these lives are, whether through the invocation of missiles from neighbouring nuclear power (cornered by imperialism like the husband in the basement - a Frankenstein inadvertently or maybe inevitably created by Mr Park), or other hazards from which even the wealthy have no protection.
The film offers a damning critique of capitalism, which benefits the upper classes of the world, and is ultimately tied up with the global hierarchy of power and wealth - a global system that benefits the rich and powerful. The same way as the damned basement-dweller worships the rich Mr Park for what he believes is "feeding him", the working class of the world has been led to believe that it is the Jeff Bezos, Jack Mas, and others who are the wealth creators, who feed the talentless 98%. The film is also a direct critique of the colonised mind, which aims at the Korean (and other) society's worship of the capitalist and colonialist West. The obsession with the English language, their replication of the normalisation of the genocide of Native Americans - "Indians," references to studying abroad and the relentless pursuit of mastering the English language as essential social capital is not unique to South Korea or culturally closer Asian countries, notably China. It is virtually every other country that is in Muhammad Iqbal's words "have been hypnotized by the West," yet fail to see, like the members of the Kim family did before taking a closer look, that beyond the faÃ§ade of extravagance and cash, Mr Park is an impotent man and his wife is a naive woman with no distinction from the rest of the society. There must be something rotten in the system then.
The film has sacrifices: the younger daughter dies amidst the drama in the backyard of the bourgeoisie, the poor goes back to the basement. His son gets his Morse-coded message but rescuing him from that place remains a dream. This is a depressing and hopeless take of Parasite on our modern world.
The film sells as a black comedy, but I didn't even smile - not once. This is perhaps I was absorbed by the poignant subtext. Secondly, I don't see a solution is offered. But I welcome the open-endedness: we can choose whether it the Parks family who is the parasite, or the global capitalism of the 2%. But, it is the hopeless aspiration of the son, that is to become rich enough to buy the house is built upon the his father's prison, that is the most depressing part? If this is the solution, we are at a deadlock.