plug: Parasite (2019)
‘Parasite’ is the anti-capitalist satire we need right now.
Sometimes when things feel really bad and I pull down on the handheld portal to hell that I’m addicted to even though it makes me feel like I’m climbing a never-ending evil staircase, I silently ask no one in particular “Do you think we’ll ever get tired of fucking up?”
lol.
Anyway, Bernie Sanders, the 78-year old socialist running for president, suspended his campaign yesterday morning and now mainstream Democrat Joe Biden will win the nomination. The reactions poured into my timelines and they looked like this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this.
Yesterday morning when Andy and I were texting about the shit news before the rest of the shit news hit the timeline we were toying around with the idea of recommending Melancholia when I saw this godsend:
Parasite is the perfect movie for this moment. It’s an anti-capitalist satire thriller that won best picture and made the bad man angry because it’s a film from South Korea and he’s a well-documented racist. Its central story about a poor family conning their way into a rich family’s home is full of twists and turns and metaphors and stunning visual sequences and perfect performances and has a ton to say about class warfare and how capitalism turns us into hopeless addicts.
My partner and I rewatched it last night, and at one point she said “I love this family. All they do is hustle hard, get drunk, and imagine what it’s like to be rich.” And I guess she’s right, when you’re poor all you can really do is dream about being rich. And if you’re smart and fearless enough you can lie and cheat and steal until you feel rich, too.
I’ve never been smart or fearless, but I used to be poor enough that one time I had a weird sharp pain in my side and instead of going to the doctor I just thought: “oh well, I hope this isn’t serious haha and if it is I hope I don’t die hahaha.” I guess I preferred gambling with death than to owe a hospital an absurd amount of money forever, so I just googled the symptoms on my phone and waited for it to go away and eventually it did, but I never knew what it was or if it would come back and kill me someday.
Anyway, millions of people live like that now — on the brink of poverty, glued to their phones, feeling like complete shit and hoping they won’t die.
I’m sure you already know this, but Parasite doesn’t have a happy ending. But it isn’t exactly a sad ending, either. Parasite is a story about the brutalities and cruelties most people face, and Bong Joon-ho doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink in telling the story. His honesty is a beautiful gift. In his own words to Vulture:
“There are people who are fighting hard to change society. I like those people, and I’m always rooting for them, but making the audience feel something naked and raw is one of the greatest powers of cinema. I’m not making a documentary or propaganda here. It’s not about telling you how to change the world or how you should act because something is bad, but rather showing you the terrible, explosive weight of reality. That’s what I believe is the beauty of cinema.”
Sanders was one of these people fighting to change society who also showed us the terrible, explosive weight of reality. But it’s important to remember that he’s not the only one. We’ve continually been shown our brutality and cruelty, now we have to find a new way of fighting, no matter how shitty we feel. Jeremy Gordon, a great editor at the Outline until it shuttered last week, put it best:
