Parasite: Korean Movie

Parasite is a timeless Korean movie, released in 2019, which leaves you with a lot to think about. Having seen it recently, I tried to understand the ideas in depth and therefore pondered over it a lot. After having read many different forums about the interpretation of the movie, I felt that I had something to add to all the various interpretations, based on the teachings of our scriptures on how to lead a good life. One needs to absorb the most useful learnings from everything we see and experience, be it any form of art. Parasite also provides you with a very comprehensive and straightforward enlightenment: ‘How not to lead your life and how not to raise a family’.

Coming straight to the point, being another one of the good movies in recent time, which won the Oscars and it is, but naturally, a thought-provoking movie.

Many comments and discussions about this film talk about the disparity between the rich and the poor. How the rich people shown in the movie are the underlying reasons for all the events in the film. How, the main parasite in the movie are not the poor people who have been feeding off the rich family but also the rich family which is completely dependent on the lower class people to be able to maintain their lifestyle and live a normal life. Moreover, most of these discussions spill over into the good old debate between the communist and capitalist ideologies. I, being a person who neither understands any of these “isms”, nor is much familiar with the world cinema, just wanted to express my views, which might be perceived as most people as very fundamental and mundane.

Acting as a devil’s advocate, as mentioned already, people have explained that how every character in the movie is a parasite. To me it seems that the main protagonist family is the poor Kim family, while the Park family is more of a backdrop since we never understand them and their thoughts in depth. So they are rich, but how shallow are they or what do they think of other people, what do they think of poor people? Do they believe in humanity, do they see humans as humans without class discrimination? This all is not clear from the movie. Therefore, I will focus on what I understand about the Kim family and what I think the movie teaches us with their example.  All what I see from this movie is that parasites feeding off of hosts is a natural phenomenon, these parasites and hosts come from various species in the animal and plant kingdom, be it a worm inside a fruit or an amoeba in our body. Parasitic relationships are a part of nature all around us and the same applies to human societies as well. In a similar light, I see that the poor Kim family has parasitism in its very genetic make up. Why?

Let’s then try to ask some questions to understand this:
1. What are the moral values and ethics, which these poor parents had imparted to their children?

2. What did these poor parents know about earning money, about saving money and about spending money?  Did they teach anything in that context to their kids?

3. What did the parents know about hard work and what did they convey to their children?

If you think about it, the parents themselves don’t know how to earn money the right way as well as how to spend their money in the right way. They do not seem to be knowing much about hard work and diligence, but are always trying to get by their days constantly, making efforts to find a shortcut to money. Even though the son of the Kim family got into the Park’s house fraudulently, he started to earn good money right from the beginning. By the time his sister joined him as well, they must have been making more money than they usually did. And yet they don’t know how to invest it or use it wisely because they just don’t know. That is something which is not in their value system. This is evident from the scene when the sister was taking the money out from the ceiling during heavy rain. Wads of money which were of no use. Even after the whole family started working for this rich family and even when they must be properly earning enough to be able to rent a good house, they didn’t do it. These are things which made me think of them as parasites through their genes. Even though a parasite gets enough food from the source, they neither start living on their own nor stop sucking food from the source, because they are just not programmed for it.

Even in the last segment of the movie, when they escaped from a situation where they were almost caught by the Park’s family, they don’t want to take this as a learning and to start a new life with the money they had already earned. Instead of trying to improve their life style, which didn’t even occur to them ever because they are parasites, they get angry at their employer for starkly observable things such as bad stench of their clothes due to the place they had been living in. If you think about it, even poor people can live in a clean and hygienic way to the best of their abilities (cleanliness is something you will never find in their house), more so when you start earning enough money.

As usual in the nature also, at the end of the day when two parasites fight with each other, of course the host is the one who is always on the losing side. Furthermore, in any ecosystem, if the source or host lets the parasite grow on it for too long, it is bound to get affected by the parasite. The parasite consumes something which is lost to the host at the end of the day. Because becoming a host involves a lot of hard work and dedicated efforts through many generations to be able to reach a state of abundance, which is going to be lost due to the parasite, but for the parasite, it has, anyway, been living this parasite life. Even if you offer them all the resources in the world, there is no way the parasites could step up to the next level unless otherwise they cultivate the right values in their family through moral education and exemplary ethical conduct. Wisdom and moral values, ultimately have nothing to do with one’s economic status. A poor person could be good or bad and so can a rich person be as well. Everything depends on the kind of education you receive. The right kind of education is the one which lets you see things for what they are, without bias and discrimination and teaches you how to lead a proper life. In the words of Tiruvalluvar, from one of the best treatise on life, i.e. Tirukkural:

Tamil
கண்ணுடையர் என்பவர் கற்றோர் முகத்திரண்டுபுண்ணுடையர் கல்லா தவர். (௩௱௯௰௩)

-திருவள்ளுவர்

Hindi
कहलाते हैं नेत्रयुत, जो हैं विद्यावान। मुख पर रखते घाव दो, जो है अपढ़ अजान ॥ (३९३)

-तिरुवल्लुवर

Sanskrit
चक्षुष्मन्तस्त एव स्यु: ज्ञानचक्षुर्युतास्तु ये। इतरेषामुभे नेत्रे व्रणे स्यातां मुखोत्थिते ॥ (३९३)

-तिरुवल्लुवरः

English
The erudite have eyes; the ignorant have on their faces, two gashes. (393)

-Tiruvalluvar