Finally watched the movie Parasite last night. Sometimes, when a movie or book or album us super-hyped by both reviewers and friends, I find my self pushing back. Maybe I want the joy of discovery. Maybe I'm just ornery. Most likely a little of both. And it's silly, because almost every time, once I finally see it, I am glad I did. Either because they were right and it's amazing, or because they were wrong and I can't wait to discuss it with them. So finally, many months after it came out, I took my WGA screener DVD (one of the perks for being in the screenwriters union) which had been sitting in front of the tv since we first got out shelter in place order, popped it in, and watched the movie.And man. So good. So not what I expected. I knew it was a thriller of some sort, with a political message. Sort of like Get Out set in Korea or something. And in a way, it is. But it's so much more. So funny, interesting, quirky, and exciting. One of those rare movies that grabs your attention and never lets it go. As soon as it was over, I wanted to watch it again. Maybe it's the time we are living in that made me react so strongly to it. I think I would have loved it even if I first saw it in that other world that was my life before the virus. It hits all the buttons, tells a great story, and is never didactic. It is rough, like any good thriller should be. People in this movie do terrible things. Selfish, cruel, insane things. And yet they are all, to a certain degree, sympathetic. While it is about class, about economic desperation and what that can drive people to do, it's not an angry picture, I think. More of an honest depiction of what we are all capable of. And the imagery! So good. There is this one sequence during a huge rainstorm that is so brilliant. it makes you feel like you are dreaming. And like a dream, each movement, each image has meaning and feeling. Some are clear, some instinctual, but all intense. When the movie was over, I felt like I do when I wake from one of my more vivid dreams, or like when I get off one of my favorite rides at Disneyland or out of a truly awesome concert or play: exhilarated, spiritually charged, and full of love for humanity.
And if they do turn out to be serial killers, we lock them up.
Ok. Here's a song. It's Parasite, by Kiss, from the way way back.
1 comment:
I can't say enough good things about Parasite. It hits a lot of right notes. The Kim family of servants might seem like the parasites in the way they use dishonesty to infest the lives of the rich Park family. In one scene, when the Kims are partying at the Parks' huge Frank Lloyd Wright mansion, they literally scurry like cockroaches under the furniture. Ultimately, though, the Parks are the real parasites. They are part of a system that sucks the resources out of the lower classes and gives nothing back.
This movie struck an unexpected chord in me. When I was living in Berkeley, I was renting a basement room from a friend of mine. Like the Kim family's apartment, it was partially submerged so that the window was at ground level. Unlike the movie, though, my window looked out onto a front lawn in a suburb. During part of my time in that room, I was poor and unemployed. It was by a stroke of luck, or fate, that I was able to get a steady job as a receptionist at a manufacturing firm. Eventually, I was promoted to be their computer network administrator. By that time, I had come to realize that this was a family business. I had earned my job there through internal promotion and my own independent study of computer science. The president was the son of the founder. That's how an non-engineer was able to become the head of a manufacturing firm. It felt like generosity when they promoted me, but working this job came to mean also working at the home of the president to help him reconfigure his computer at his house, and even help him set up a stereo system there, on top of all the work I did in the factory. I felt like a servant. When I brought this up, Mr. President verbally harassed me over the phone. Working so many extra hours started to threaten my health. I quit.
The ruling class may think they are being kind when they give you a job, but they still see you as a servant, like Mr. Park in Parasite always seeing Mr. Kim as a servant and not a man and an equal.
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