Class Division and Lack of Empathy - Is It Innate?

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 2020)

Bong Joon Ho's tragicomedy that is a "comedy without clowns, and tragedy without villains" (Ho, 2019) is a masterful painting of the division between classes and all the implications and ramifications that come with it. Parasite puts us in the shoes of a low class family and walks us into the life of the elite, making sure to land both class' realities and idiosyncrasies precisely and delicately through the superb acting, meticulous production design and breath-takingly purposeful cinematography. Although the bold and blunt screenplay narrates and exposes our lack of empathy in dealing with people of different classes, refreshingly, the shot selection during a small scene in the second act shows the interaction of a house maid and her boss through the differing perspectives of an adult and a child. In this sequence the directory of photography first shows us the perspective of the adult wherein she is looking over at the boss and her maid and sees a clear visual divide between the two. When the camera shows us the same scene from the perspective of the child, no such barrier is present, and they are on the same side. Bong Joon Ho has exquisitely created a universe that mirrors the realities of his home country today without knowing that the same story resonates through out the globe. Through the chaos that pursues because of the interlacing of these two contrasting families both in the film and in our everyday lives, I believe we need to go back to the mindset of a child wherein we stop seeing people as defined by their social economic status and strive to see each other simply as humans.