Ben Travis: It’s impossible not to feel sympathy
for the Kim family – their ‘invasion’ of the wealthy
Park household is deceitful, but driven by
desperation and ingenuity. From document
forgery to peach-poisoning, they clearly don’t
lack for creativity or ambition, but through
economic circumstance are stuck languishing on
society’s bottom rung. But just when you think
the fi lm’s ambiguous title refers to the Kims,
a parasitic family feeding off the Parks, the fi lm
ultimately complicates that – highlighting how
the Parks are only able to maintain their quality
lifestyle by living off the work of the Kims. As Kim
matriarch Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin) puts it,
“They’re nice because they’re rich.”Top: Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) surveys the scholar’s
rock that changes hands multiple times in the story. Below:
Kim Ki-jeong (Park So-dam) is peachy keen. Bottom: The
Parasite Kims struggle to make an honest living.Nick de Semlyen:The classic noirGaslight
features a man tricking his wife into thinking she’s
going insane. Parasite ramps this notion up
considerably, with a whole family duping another
family, via a series of elaborate mind games, into
hiring them for full-time jobs. There is collateral
damage along the way, namely the chauffeur and
housekeeper who are dismissed for misdeeds
they have not committed — the former is framed
via a pair of panties placed in his car, the latter
made to look like she’s got an infectious disease
through the cunning deployment of peach fuzz
and hot sauce. The plotting is diabolical, yet
the Parks come off badly, too; rather than have
awkward conversations with their loyal employees,
they dismiss them with spurious excuses, an
indictment of the way the upper classes fail to
communicate with those who serve them.1 MEET THE FAMILY
2 THE SCHEMES
Nick de Semlyen: The fi lm opens with a shot that
prominently features socks dangling, left to dry.
It’s a wholly unglamorous introduction to the Kim
family, whose home also features an infestation
of stink bugs, stacks of empty pizza boxes (the
source of the Kims’ collective income) and an
elevated toilet (the only spot where you can get
Wi-Fi — and hijacked Wi-Fi at that). It’s a truly
grubby abode — not only an effective contrast
to the rich Park family’s opulent mansion, but a
strange mirror of it, with deliberate design echoes
throughout both locations. Most obviously, the
large central window featured in each — at the
Parks’, it looks out over an immaculate lawn, at
the Kims’, a piss-soaked alley.DO NOT CROSS HERE IF SPOILERS OFFEND
DO NOT CROSS HERE IF SPOILERS OFFEND
DO NOT CROSS HERE IF SPOILERS OFFEND