Parasite: Violence spelled with a capital "RED"

When I first saw the movie poster of "Parasite", I assumed that it was a horror movie. There was something terribly uncanny about it, with all the people staring straight into the camera and yet their eyes were censored. We aren't given a clue to their emotions, their face stoned and seemingly unflinching, as if in the next second something would erupt. Watching the movie made me realise that this movie wasn't horror, it was something worse -- It was shamelessly violent.

Upon the death of his wife, the unstable man bashed someone's head in with a rock, stabbed someone in the heart, got skewered himself with a barbeque pick, followed by the father killing the seemingly innocent head of the park family. That's fucking extreme and the movie spares no expense in protraying the scene as violently as possible; Unnecesarily bringing the stone down upon Ki-Woo's head for the second time, the violent tension between him drawing the knife till his first stabbing and the red blood splattering all across the cakes. This is accompanied by the camera never shying away as well, making sure you see every knife entering the flesh in 4K detail. Was showing such gore even needed? I started wondering whether it was just played up for shock value and half-way through I even started being disgusted, not just at the shameless violence but at the director for showing it to us. And me being me, I wanted to know why that was shown to me. Was there any meaning behind the violence? Maybe violence was the meaning... Let's break it down.

Tension comes from the ignored

The father, Ki-Taek, is someone who works very hard to keep his family afloat. From the beginning of the film you can see him clinging onto every penny he can safe; Learning how to fold boxes quickly to make more money, letting the pest exterminating fumes in so that he himself don't have to invest in them. And behind the scenes you probably can figure out that if he was able to raise two children up healthily into their twenties even while living in a basement, he must've worked his ass for for many years. In fact, he should even be acknowledged by the people around him for his efforts and yet, when he came into contact with the Park family they mocked him. He smells like an old man or like old radish, they said. Dismissing his professionality in driving or his helpfulness towards his employers, he was characterised by something completely uncontrollable by him, the scent of his own dirty home.

Then imagine, the flooding that destroyed your entire house, your family was forced to evict into a safety shelter. And yet, nobody offers a hand. The upper class represented by the Park family seemingly didn't even know about the flooding that was so close to their homes. They were oblivious and they continued throwing their money at their son's extravagant birthday party. Money that he would've begged to have. The lady of the Park family even jabbed at him, even if unknowingly, that it was thanks to the rain that they could have a good party.

Seeing the carefree spending of money that he needed, being ignored for his efforts and worse, being mocked for something as ridiculous as how he smell -- That tension was what erupted his rage to bring down the knife upon the head of the Park family. It was the tension between the lower class and the upper class; A tension in which the upper class was always looking down on him, mocking him; A tension in which the society doesn't care to lend a hand to people down at the bottom of the barrel; A tension that life would always turn on his head and any plans he have would backfire.

A tension in which he himself doesn't matter.

The parasite

This is when the parasite is born. When you have fruitlessly struggled alone for so long that you start thinking that none of the consequences matter. Ki-Taek tells his son when they were evicted to the gym: "When life always makes your plan go haywire, that's when you think it is better to not have any plans at all. That's when even if you betray your country or kill a man, nothing matters."

This apathethic mindset is when you start thinking it is okay to hurt others to gain what you want. The entire first half of the movie was prime example of that. How do we inject ourselves into the lives of the rich, and leech off of them? You lie about your academic qualifications just to tutor their daughter, ignoring the fact that that may risk her grades. You set up the driver to be scandalous, destroying his career and his reputation. You make it seem like the housemaid has tuberculosis, ignoring the fact that she might be an old lady with her own family to feed. Then, you push her down the stairs to risk being exposed as a fraud, ignoring the fact that she might die. And finally, you have thoughts that you can bash their heads in with a stone just to silence them, because their life matters less than your own livelihood. The parasite of the society are people who think that they matter more than everyone else around them, and the violent acts, whether destroying one's life indirectly or directly, happens. And they all happen unapologetically as the daughter of the Kim family remarks when they have succeeded taking over the house: "Worry about us first, ignore the others."

Apathy breeds violence

He was living a comfortable life. Regardless of whether he lived in a basement or not, he didn't mind it there. Every so often the house would be empty and he could emerge. His wife would be waiting for him in the beautiful house, and they would dance, basking in the sunlight of a fleeting, yet wondrous moment of his life. And now, because of a bunch of parasites, their lives were thrown into chaos -- And the love of his life, dies.

Nothing matters to him anymore, he just wants justice to be served. An eye for an eye. So he emerges from the basement and he bashes the skull of Ki-Woo, twice. He unsheaths his knife and he stabs it straight into the heart of the Ki-Jyeong, killing her. And for not he himself being killed first, he would've undoubtly taken the life of the other two. 

This was the unforeseen outcome, ironically foreshadowed by Ki-Taek himself, that when life destroys your plans, it wouldn't even matter if you murdered everyone. And that's when everything comes full-circle. 

Apathy is cyclical

It is because the upper class are oblivious and ignorant to the needs of the lower class that the lower class are desparate enough to put their survival above all else, leading to their violence which leeches off everyone around them. This itself leads to people who are hurt, and wants revenge or if you think about it from another angle, this leads to the breeding of people who are more apathethic. So apathethic that if taken to the extreme, could enact gruesome murder without batting an eye.

And that is why the last scene was so nonsensically violent. Because the more this cycle of apathy spins itself, the more violence it creates. Erupting into a spectacle where cakes are dyed in blood, and even Ki-Taek, who kills a person who was completely innocent, and for as stupid as a reason of because he thought he smelled like old radish -- A nonsensical violence fitting for a cycle that has spun itself out of control.

Breaking the cycle

So what's the secret formula? Is it to start a riot so that the upper class would finally notice? Well, I doubt that will work. After all, take the news reporting of the crime, they spoke all about Ki-Taek who had killed the head of the Park family but did they once mentioned the man from the basement or the life of Ki-Jyeong who was taken? Had they even understood the stories behind their violence, the stories of the lower class? Nope, the news was all about finding out the reason why the head of the Park family was killed, nothing else matters. Because once again they remain oblivious even after the problem was shoved against their face in the most violent way possible.

Breaking out of the cycle is the lower class' responsibility, the individual responsibility. That is why Ki-Woo has resolved to buy the house by his own merits. Because his father's crimes will never be dissolved and buying the house is the only little freedom he can give back to him. (Mirrors how the children of migrants are always expected to be doctors. That's the only way the family can break out of poverty after all.) But if that's the case then... Aren't we all back to square one? If the solution to breaking the cycle of apathy is to bring oneself out of poverty, then wouldn't every Tom, dick and Harry have thought about it before? 

I guess that is why the final shot of the movie is of Ki-Woo breaking out of the dream. And as we once again stared through the basement window, panning down to him, we return back to the very beginning of the movie -- Poor, dreaming yet hopelessly loss.