Why good films speak in metaphors — a small analysis of Parasite
Important: this article is written for people who have seen the movie. It offers limited background and contains spoilers!
Some weeks ago I finally saw Parasite, a film that everyone has been raving about and which won the Palm d’Or this year. Dragging a friend of mine there with the promise that this was going to be a real winner, I was glad to find that we were not disappointed. In a story that is both funny and tragic, director Bong Joon-ho smartly displays Korea’s class divide by tracing the struggle of a lower-class family (the Kims) and their absurd infiltration into the home of the super-rich. Bordering on the absurd and eventually lapsing into the violently grotesque, the movie, speaks about keeping up appearances, social class, masculinity, family and the uncontrollable and pointless phenomena that is life itself.
What however elevates this film from a regular social drama to a masterwork, is — with a nod to the film — its use of metaphorical language. It shows how, to reach its full potential as an interactive medium, a film should use actions and characters not as a means to an end, but a vehicle to speak about universal themes. And since metaphors only come alive in collision with the knowledge we bring to the table, it’s the ultimate way to engage viewers and allow the film to extend beyond the canvas and into our minds.
Take Bong’s use of smell for example, here a powerful multilayer metaphor. On the one hand, there is the material level of the Kim’s family ‘basement smell’ that acts as a dramatic tool within the narrative, almost giving the ‘impostor family’ away on numerous occasions, and arousing suspicion among the rich family father Mr. Park.
However, in context with the plot, the material attributes of smell also become symbolic for the intangible yet pervasive nature of social class. Bong illustrates how, like smell, class difference is something that can be detected by others (even children!) while usually remaining unnoticeable to oneself, and therefore nearly impossible to disguise or erase.
Bong even ingeniously underlines this by taking advantage of his medium’s two dimensionality. Our inability to perceive this smell that ‘crosses the line’ and its limitation to a concept but not sensory phenomena places viewers in the same clueless, even helpless position as the Kims. He brings his message to life through the medium itself, allowing viewers to empathise with the Kims physically.
That the ‘basement smell’ only seems noticeable to wealthy male characters and not the women, meanwhile opens a further layer about gender dynamics and power. Interestingly, while wealthy women seem to be in somewhat of a bubble, the opposite seems to apply in the Kim family where the daughter Ki-jung best understands the smells’ origin. It’s surely no coincidence that she is also the most adaptable to the lifestyle of the rich, perhaps a hint to young women’s (especially if good-looking) chance to marry up-ward in society. In the end, her death and role as martyr however only strengthen the notion that one can never truly rise above one’s rank in society or escape the situation one was born into.
Finally, it is also the simple act of Mr. Parker holding his nose that triggers the climactic ending where Mr. Kim kills his wealthy counterpart. Besides solidifying the story’s protagonist, this moment unveils another core theme: masculinity and a fathers struggle to fulfil his role as head and provider of a family. His ultimate flight — or self-condemnation to the cellar, depending on how you interpret it — that leaves his son to his own devices, brings this topic all the more to the forefront, revealing a tale of father and son of where the latter is constantly aspiring to make up for his fathers shortcomings.
Nevertheless, between Mr. Kims surrender to a parasitic life in the cellar, the death of Mr. Parks — the man who ‘had it all’ — and the son’s unrealistic dream epilogue in which he buys the house (as well as multiple other events) the movie’s nihilist tone ultimately takes us to it’s deepest message and final layer of meaning: that there is no such thing as ultimate truth in a world void of meaning and the absurdity of life as game you cannot win.
Indeed, through simple narrative tools like smell, Parasite displays a craftsmanship that not only has the ability to elevate a simple gesture of a hand to a thrilling turning-point, but which miraculously makes a 28-year old woman in Berlin relate to the struggles of a family father in Korea. Similar to the way that children’s films usually have a second layer of embedded humour or socio political critique for adults (think Pixar’s Inside Out or Disney’s Frozen), Bong unites several important themes in a simple story-driven narrative whose roots of meaning run deep. Watching his film, reminds us that a good movie not only entertains you in the moment, but allows for its message to unfold over time, ultimately connecting us to the story we see.