Commercial films and TV series usually work very hard to get the audience emotionally invested in at least one specific character whose problems and desires they take on as their own. This makes the audience really care about their situation and thus the story. They look “through” such a character and “at” everyone and everything else.
It’s not easy to achieve this sense of connection. It helps when the character in question is easy to relate to and identify with on a human level. This requires getting to know them and their central life challenges, early on, by spending some time establishing their situation and understanding what they want or what’s missing in their life.
Parasite opens with a touch of this, by showing the Kim family’s difficult living situation, and it initially seems like it will follow the son, who seems easy enough to care about, although we haven’t seen his struggles individually, and have to just take on faith from dialogue that he hasn’t been able to get the life he wants, presumably due to his family’s poverty.
But then the script makes some choices that take it in a different direction, where I think it becomes harder for the audience to look through his perspective in the classic way.
What follows does not include specific plot spoilers, but does hint at some of the storytelling choices in a way that some readers might find gives something away. You might want to see the movie first.
Usually films stay with their main character and make life difficult for them, while grabbing the audience with some goal that seems very hard to reach and yet very important to their future happiness. And usually the main character is losing, overmatched, and in an “upside down” world from the very beginning of the second act.
Parasite takes a different approach:
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This young man is winning, and rather easily, in what he wants to do in the first half of the movie.
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We don’t stay so much just with him but take on more of a “group perspective” of the family as a whole.
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The end game in terms of a goal they’re pursuing is somewhat vague and is mainly about making money.
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What they’re doing could be viewed as unsympathetic and unfair to innocent others.
Though the Kim family are definitely underdogs, the rather underhanded con they pull and their great success at it for the first half of the movie seems to challenge the audience to identify and feel for them in the usual way. It seems to be okay with the idea that the audience will mostly look “at” these characters from some distance, perhaps fascinated and amused, but not so much “through” one or more of them as the traditional main character.
At the Midpoint, the family suddenly is thrust into a huge problem, which is shocking and genre-bending, and suddenly gives them a lot of difficulty to navigate for the rest of the film. That’s helpful in giving the audience something to feel tension and suspense about. At the same time, other storytelling choices arguably make it harder than usual to feel “inside” the characters and story, in an ongoing way.
Parasite has been phenomenally successfully critically, and pulled off the amazing achievement of winning the Academy Award for Best Picture (and many others) as a subtitled film from Korea. It obviously has a lot going for it, and does a lot of things strikingly well. But I want to examine this one aspect and talk about what that choice means for the rest of us writers as we craft stories.
One of the key weaknesses I see in many scripts is a lack of attention to (or success at) achieving audience emotional connection, where the reader “becomes” a character and feels what they’re going through as if it was happening to them. Usually that is necessary for a film to have the most powerful impact. This requires getting to know them on a more individual level than what we see in Parasite, understanding and relating to the choices they make, while showing them mostly fail at what they try to achieve.
In Parasite there are moments of high relatability, and certainly tension when someone is in a life-or-death battle or trying not to be discovered in a compromised position, and I think the audience tends to take on the family’s desperation, as a group, when things get tough. But by choosing to not present things more subjectively through a single character’s relatable perspective (or multiple characters in true “ensemble” fashion), and making the family’s actions borderline in terms of the audience being able to be on their side, I think the film makes a conscious choice to create emotional impact in other ways. This is not easy to do.
My book The Idea and its companion course talk about the 7 elements that typically need to all be present for it to be successful, using an acronym for the word PROBLEM, since every story is about one:
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Punishing
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Relatable
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Original
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Belivable
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Life-Altering
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Entertaining
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Meaningful
Relatability is the one that can be compromised through some of the choices mentioned above, which I think can lead to a bit of emotional detachment. And it results in an ending that, for me, doesn’t have the same level of personal connection to it that a similar ending might have in a different film.
Some might quibble with Parasite’s level of Believability in places, too.
But it arguably makes up for that by being especially strong in the other five areas.
The situation is especially Punishing for the family, once things really kick in around the Midpoint. That’s much later than we usually see, but the shocking and fascinating way this is pulled off, and the high level of Punishment that ensues from that point on, coupled with the fascinating and high-risk nature of what they’re doing all along, helps make this work.
The story is also strong on Originality. Which can be very helpful when it comes to awards and critics, film festivals, and “artier” (i.e. not mainstream) audiences.
The stakes are definitely Life-altering enough, once they kick in after the Midpoint.
And the genius level story and filmmaking choices keep it all very Entertaining. It goes for awe, fascination, surprise and sometimes shock. It definitely keeps you guessing and on the edge of your seat, especially in the second half.
Finally, the film feels Meaningful in how it explores its central themes. It’s about something beyond its surface plot. It sticks with you. It’s examining and making points about wealth and poverty, love and family, and who here are the true “parasites.” And one of my clients pointed me to a video that intriguingly examines how it’s an example of a negative “Disillusionment arc” for the father and son character, as outlined in K.M. Weiland’s book Creating Character Arcs.
So am I saying “Don’t try this at home”? Or “Use this as a model”?
For writers starting out and trying to break in with a script, I would lean toward “Don’t try this at home.” But let me qualify that.
The first big goal in starting a writing career tends to be signing with a manager. And managers highly value originality and a distinct voice in a new writer. Which Parasite clearly demonstrates. But it also demonstrates a very authentic exploration of human nature and character that gives it much of its power. We might not get “inside” the characters in the traditional way, and some story elements might be a little bit “out there,” but somehow it all holds together as a depiction of people who feel real, and who are understood on an emotional level. It combines that with stunning shock-value originality and exceptional filmmaking craft. Can you pull that off, and thus make it “safe” or at least possible to violate one or two typical storytelling principles?
Perhaps the most important question to ask is what kind of writer or filmmaker you want to be. What inspires you and what kind of content and emotional impact do you want to have? What kind of genre do you want to work in, what level of stakes? What types of situations do you want to explore, and how do you want to do it in your own individual way? Can you “break the rules” consciously because you see a greater good in doing that than in following them? I think it helps if you know them and why they work, first. And maybe even have some practice in following them successfully. This filmmaker’s key influences and obsessions — what he wants to say and explore — take him down a very specific type of road that he has followed with dedication. It feels to me like the work of a mature artist who knows how to grab and hold an audience and make them feel something, in his own highly individualistic way. And if you can achieve that, then obviously you’ve really got something.
I hear what you’re saying though I agree with JM Green’s comment above. What bothered me the most about the story is how they showed real brilliance in their con – perhaps too much considering their economic situation. Perhaps the educational system is better in S Korea and people at the bottom have better opportunities than here in the USA.
But then, after showing such smarts and fooling the upper class, they make a ridiculous mistake! The boss’s wife says she, her husband, and their children are going camping. They leave, then the rain starts pouring continuously while the parasite family gets sloppy drunk and makes a mess. Don’t they know the boss and family will return? Who camps in the rain? How could they be so suddenly dim-witted? Unless the translation was wrong in the subtitles, that stupidity is completely out of character and it ruined the story for me.
The situation in the basement and the outrageous violence was an innovative way to comment on a divided, grossly unequal society. And the final situation in the basement was a good finish, in my opinion.
Interesting points, thanks Robert!
I can certainly understand how this movie polarizes people in viewing…yet in retrospect that seems to be part of the “message” of the film re. societal polarization….everyone is locked into their own narrow silo of consciousness and it takes a crisis or violent upheaval often to break those established barriers. I really appreciated the brilliance of the script, and while it’s departure into horror late in the film was not pleasant to watch, neither is the evening news after a tragic shooting or other senseless act of violence. Riveting and nauseating at the same time. It seems a perfect snapshot of our times in it’s own humble way.
silos is the perfect word for that..true
I used to be a tutor of English as a Second Language for students from Asian countries at a university, while taking ESL graduate courses. One thing we discussed at length was the inherent differences between collectivist societies and individualistic societies; becoming aware of these differences helps avoid cultural misunderstandings in teaching or tutoring situations.
So one contributing factor to how the movie approaches the story is that, in keeping with Korean culture, it is the *family unit*, rather than individual members, that takes priority. So maybe for it’s original audience, it is the entire family that functions as a collective “main character,” sort of like as an individual we have various personas or voices or internal points of view that make up the totality of who we are, but in an Asian society it is the family unit that is primary and individuals are more like complex personas within the story of that single, multigenerational entity. It’s a very different paradigm for sure, but one that seems to fit what you describe.
Very interesting point – thanks for offering that!
Thank you for this thoughtful review of Parasite. My reaction to the movie was that I lost almost all interest in the story as soon as the “basement guy” was introduced because I could not relate to him and his wife at all, they didn’t interest me, I didn’t understand their problem and their introduction violated one very simple rule: “Show don’t tell.” The man in the basement tells us his story (and I have completely forgotten everything about it) which ads a layer of non-relatability, because his account doesn’t touch me one bit.
I completely tuned out when it came to the absurd scene in the garden. I have no idea who does what to whom out of what reason in this scene.
So in conclusion, I can see that there is some originality in this story and I also follow you on the fact that–as far as the story concerns the Kim family–the events are punishing, and maybe even life-altering. For me there was a complete lack though in terms of the story being believable, entertaining or meaningful.
Interesting how everyone reacts to things somewhat differently. I see what you mean about the basement guy although I didn’t quite take it that way. I was more affected by the violence that ensues in how the Kims respond to this couple. Although it did make sense, given their desperate situation…
Your take on this film is interesting but I heartily disagree with you. Yes, the stakes and the investment we feel with the “main” character and his family are always changing and shifting, and that’s precisely what makes this film feel so different. It’s defying convention and our expected narrative formulas re: what is right vs. wrong, who should be “punished” as a result, etc etc.
Unlike you, I had little to no sympathy for the rich family members who were being taken advantage of. The film often shows us their complete lack of empathy toward others, their complete self-absorption, their weakened or deficient mental states. It is clear that they pretty much lucked into their ruling-class status and that the poor son/daughter are as intelligent and deserving of success (or more so). In fact, one of the main people being taken advantage of (the female major domo) turns out to be more duplicitous than the young man. It’s a huge shock when we see this, as she is one of the people we felt most sorry for, up to that point.
The young man and his sister (and later parents) are using the same methods as the rich family to get ahead in life and to improve their station. It does seem cringey and abhorrent at some points but never more than the ways the rich family originally got where they are. It’s all the same “circle of life” (corrupt, unfair, and gasp-worthy horrible when you see it in action).
Who deserves what they have, or what they don’t have? We expect movies to tell us, to make these judgements for us, or lecture us, but not this one. Nothing is fair, nothing is ever fair, nothing has ever been fair. Some work their butts off, others are rich enough to pay someone else to work their butts off so they don’t have to do it themselves.
I thought that the different ways this movie makes us feel, constantly showing us one or the other viewpoint, letting us decide what is “good” and what is “bad,” who “deserves” what they have and who does not, was so incredibly exciting. I loved not knowing what was going to come next. I was moved to laughter and to tears, sometimes within seconds of each other. I loved not feeling as though the script was written to match some patented scriptwriting handbook formula.
How incredible to see how this movie feels now, under COVID-19 quarantine. The rich hide away in their compounds or megayachts. The workers are deemed “essential” and life could not go on without them. I definitely understand why this movie would make some people uncomfortable and unhappy, because it lays bare some harsh realities.
Great points KJ! Thanks so much for taking the time to comment!
Erik, great article! I get your point. It’s certainly not an approach easy to copy or trying at “home”. Because he’s not only telling an smart/entertaining story. He uses his storytelling and filmmaking habilities and skills to make a sharp radiography about our contemporary society and the obvius inequalities, between rich and poor. But the key point of his approach is how education, or more acurate, access to education blur this barriers. That’s the difference between poor parents and their kids. Even though, at the end the windmills of reality fights back. Everything in the movie serves to this purpose, plot, characters, vissuals metaphors, cast, editing rhythm. Everything. And I think he’s trying to stir, to shake, to confront…and empathy is probably at the end of his list. Brilliant film. No doubt.
I can totally see that and don’t disagree with anything you’ve said…
Great points Kj. In my opinion, the best movies (and TV series) don’t attempt to tell us “what we SHOULD think / SHOULD believe / how we SHOULD behave” (which has frankly only gotten worse in Hollywood–it’s become ubiquitous and permeates almost everything they say and/or produce) … the best movies show us “both sides” of the story (as it were) and let “us” decide where we fall on either side.
It’s as-if, they consciously discuss, when developing a movie project: “Let’s see, what ‘message’ (meaning they: premeditatedly devise ways to inject their personal: social, political, cultural, etc, agenda’s and ideologies onto the (mostly unaware) audience–disguised as “drama”) can we sneak into our movie/story–this time?”
It used to be very-well disguised, nowadays it’s thinly-veiled… at best–or if at all.