<기생충>에 대한 짧은 감상

[영문 | 2020. 02. 09.]

Parasite has become the first non-English film to win best picture at the Academy Awards.

Here are some of my quick thoughts on and about the film:

I.

Yes, perhaps it is brilliant to visualize the class distinction between the rich and the poor by juxtaposing a mansion on the hill with a semi-basement tenement house in Seoul. Two decades ago, my college best friend rented a tiny room in such tenement house for one full semester or more. Since I was a regular visitor to his place, I know something about "banjiha."

When it comes to poor neighborhoods in Seoul, however, I tend to think about "dal-dongnae," a number of shanty-towns clung to the flanks of high mountains surrounding Seoul. "Dal-dongnae" (which literally means "moon-town") may sound archaic, but has much richer cultural overtones. In terms of the altitude of their neighborhood, "dal-dongnae" is not so different from those rich villages on the hill. You can imagine two towns on the hills facing each other. Notwithstanding the equal level, their life conditions are drastically different. I once talked to a person growing up gazing around the nearby rich town. He said he always aspired to move to that rich hilltop from his own neighborhood also on a hill. Even at the moment that I was captivated by the appealing representation of the mansion on the hill vis-a-vis the banjiha house in the film, I kept thinking about "dal-dongnae."

II.

The wealthy need the poor. They need them to run the system seamlessly. The poor are those who minister to the necessities of life. Then, we might say that the poor are placed in a better position to sense human life itself more directly. The life unadulterated from all the formalities and ostentation can be ugly, precarious, and, as Parasite characteristically points out, stinking. But it is also true that there's simple joie de vivre. This type of innocent amusement is a privilege granted to the common people.

In one of my favorite parts of Melville's Moby Dick (which is the very first part), Ishmael describes the privilege of the underprivileged:

I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it.

One outstanding feature of the Kim family in the film, for example, is that they are egalitarian to a very great degree. I fear that non-Korean native speakers might not be able to catch their family dynamics that transcend and transgress the standard cultural norms--gender, age, etc.

III.

And Parasite reminds me of a couple of people I've known. For example, Ki-woo/Kevin's first interview as a tutor made me think of two individuals. One is my former colleague who was quite a successful tutor in his hometown Incheon (and I heard that he now runs a Hagwon). The other is the former CEO of the legendary Mega Study who started his career as a top-ranked tutor. Both of them emphasized that when they were tutoring, they placed special focus on the overall development of their students, not just on their academic performance. They played the role of the motivational speaker, life coach, or pseudo-psychiatrist, talking frankly and being heartlessly demanding. That personal, all-encompassing connection might be something that kids going to a typical Korean Hagwon cannot enjoy.

And yes, "banggongho" (a basement bomb shelter) is real. One of my great-aunties used to live in a mansion in Pyongchang-dong. Her husband was a navy officer-turn-to businessman whose company long supplied seat-belts to Hyundai Motor Group. Their house had what they called "an outhouse," which really was a bomb shelter three floors below the ground. I was never allowed to go all the way down there. But some selected guests, my mother included, were welcome to visit the banggongho. No coincidence that my great aunt, like her brother and my grandfather, was originally from the Northern part of Korea (before the two Koreas were officially divided). Watching Parasite, I thought of her greatly.