Parasite

And The Flexibility Of Class In Prison

Very disappointed I could not see this one in the theaters so I could sing along to that Eddie Money classic, “I’ve got/two tickets to ‘Parasite!’”

Anyway, yes, you’ve heard of this one. I hope. I assume! One of my concerns about the streaming era is that it supercharged the media erasure of the early 00’s, when the internet set the same clock for every movie and eliminated the ability for smaller films to generate the cult following they would have in the seventies to the nineties. It was bad enough that the post-9/11 mindset eradicated the need for an alternative film culture, a mindset that continues to push philistinism within the general public as The Way Things Are, an illiteracy boosted by the declining investments in arts education.

What am I really trying to say? I’m concerned that we can have a film like “Parasite”, made by a Korean master (Bong Joon-ho), grossing $258 million worldwide and winning the Oscar for Best Picture, and it can still be forgotten. Which is not crazy – “The King’s Speech” won Best Picture at the Oscars, and that grossed $471 million. When is the last time you’ve heard anyone talk about that? We don’t necessarily have to speak up to save “The King’s Speech”, one of the biggest successes from the Weinstein Brothers, and frankly kind of a crap movie. But when the President actively targets a movie (remember that?) as loudly and incompetently as he proposes legislation, it’s worth keeping in mind that “Parasite” could always use more defenders.

“Parasite” begins with a simple job – an English translator for a wealthy Korean family. Young student Min-hyuk has to go on a trip, and so he proposes that his friend Kim Ki-woo take over for a bit. Kim, who is now “Kevin” in the eyes of the wealthy family, doesn’t just see this as an opportunity for himself. It’s also a chance for his family, who live on the margins of society, to emerge from the underground. The Kim family have been living like C.H.U.D.’s, devising scams and hustles to keep their heads above water. For too long, they’d add, though maybe you wouldn’t agree.

It’s where I’d like to add that I read a lot of discussion about “Parasite”, but the Third Rail of the film goes unnoticed, the idea that this poor family (who experience their own grace notes as complex people who love each other) is nonetheless not the most trustworthy or moral. In mainstream films from the western world, there’s an understandable reluctance to demonize the marginalized (at least in movies not made by total jerks). Unfortunately, most well-meaning filmmakers still haven’t learned how to still humanize these same characters, so they either tokenize them or, worse, act as if they’re invisible.

“Parasite” openly makes a mockery of the flawed system that you can’t paint a picture of a complicated person that nonetheless behaves in immoral ways. What we learn of the wealthier Kim family is that they are selfish and inept. The wealthy Kim family doesn’t NEED a translator, which means they don’t need any help handling their day-to-day, but gosh, wouldn’t it be convenient? So the Parks foolishly don’t question it when the Kims adopt fake personas to pose as new personal drivers and housekeepers, infiltrating the Parks’ wealthy lifestyle and estate. They haven’t begun to consider how to do these jobs, never mind exactly how long this con is supposed to go.

A hiking trip for the Kims provides the Parks a reason to gallivant around the estate, finding a place to finally, if only briefly, call their own. At this point, the audience cheers on the Kims because of preconceived notions of class, combined with the Kims’ open willingness to be duped so thoroughly. And then the house has secrets, ones that lay bare the craven desperation of the Parks while challenging, and then demolishing, any moral ground the Kims might hope to embrace.

“Parasite” thus morphs into a movie working on multiple levels. It’s in spare moments a class critique about the minimal ways money separates us from others, while also emphasizing the twisted relationships therein – the Kims yearn for what the Parks have and represent, and the Parks will do anything to avoid becoming the Kims. But as the stakes suddenly escalate, “Parasite” also becomes a troubling, and proportionally farcical, suspense thriller. If another lesser filmmaker tackled similar subject matter, your eyes would roll and you’d be restless because you have no one to root for. “Parasite” is so delicately calibrated that this doesn’t become a concern, and instead you’re watching the train slowly spiral towards the station, bodies dropping the whole way through.

Everything in “Parasite” at first feels so tactile. The personal driver who is fired due to the Kims’ machinations seems like a real guy, with real concerns and a principled view of his work. There’s a subterranean reality to moments like the Kims struggling to steal and maintain Wi-Fi signals. In spite of what they represent (particularly the squalor of the Kims’ existence), these are places a viewer wants to be – there’s a similar delight piloting Bong Joon-ho’s demented “Snowpiercer”, where a train at the end of the world is filled with cannibals and sickos and wealthy scumbags but still seems like a fascinating environment for the viewer. And then “Parasite” organically begins to tip into horror territory, and it’s like being slapped in the face. Which is what good art is supposed to do, by the way, for all you guys who gave “Deadpool And Wolverine” five stars in exit polls last year. I feel discombobulated still from watching “Parasite”, and I love remembering how much movies could re-order my world like this – didn’t get a lot of that in prison.

Class is such a constant thematic presence in “Parasite”, but in prison, it surfaces in odd ways. If you are incarcerated, people on the outside have to put money on your account to purchase commissary, hygienic items, etc. Some people have families willing to send them cash, friends too. Some of them are awash in what their friends send. And others never receive anything on their books. Prison officials consider them “destitute”, but this hardly matters unless someone needs extra pens and toiletries. I’ve seen people who skip all prison meals and simply buy commissary food every week. And I’ve seen people grow skinny and emaciated because money is never on the way. Don’t count on a job to help – many in my last spot paid a maximum of $10-$20 a month, and some paid considerably less.

Of course, the marketplace is different on the compound. Currency is mackerel pouches and stamps, and some guys will amass so much through activities like card games and gambling. Some men have no commissary money, but a stack of old fish litters their locker, read to be spent. Men will amass hundreds of dollars without a job and without money on their books because they’ve collected endless stamps – a “book” of twenty stamps will go for eight or nine dollars on the compound (a fistful could represent a couple hundred dollars). But, of course, everything you own exists in one tiny locker and nowhere else. If you’ve stashed a bunch of stamps, you need to be prepared for the possibility an officer will search you and keep it all. After only one search, the very “wealthy” can quickly become the very poor.

Next week, in honor of Fathers’ Day, it’s DAD WEEK!