Parasite (Korean; 2019)
Direction and Story: Bong Joon-ho
Yet another genre-bending offering from the land of kimchi. It is a thriller, a comedy, a dark one and a gory one too, for there is a blood bath at the end of the movie. But above all, it is a social satire.
The sensation of smell is often described as one of Man's most primitive senses. Olfactory perception is quite impressive. Its nerve endings are in such close proximity with the brain and are one of a few neurons in our brain, which is capable of regeneration. Even though it is assumed that our olfactory bulb, where sensory input converges, is underdeveloped, as our primitive survival skills dwindled when we became gatherers and farmers, we are still said to be able to identify up to a trillion different odours. The olfactory bulb is also one of the areas of the brain where neuroplasticity has been shown. At least in rodents, it has been illustrated to regenerate over the lifespan. Our olfactory sensation is under-credited than what it is capable of. Our smelling 'prowess' is shown in many professions - wine tasting and culinary industry being two common examples.
Our sense of smell has a profound and prolonged effect on our psyche. Just ask ourselves how much smells of our childhood, when life was so much more straightforward, gives us a fuzzy feeling inside. Simple things like the bodily odour of our mother or of freshly baked cookies give us indescribable warmth or reassurance that everything would be all right.
On the other hand, there are certain smells that we just want to be released from our systems. A person wishing to uproot himself from his previous working-class background would be all too familiar with the effects of toiling long hours under the heat of the sun. He would associate fermenting strong odour with the first sign of poverty. Even how much he tries to mask with perfumes and aesthetics, to the outsider, it is apparent. And he may want to run away from his chequered past.
It is also interesting that our mind somehow can 'cancel off' some smells that we are entrenched in. Like stupidity, body odour is for others to realise. My mother once visited her friend. In her small home backyard, she reared a few cows. My mother could hardly endure the one hour that she spent there. Everywhere she smelled cow dung even though the house was far from the cowshed was quite a distance away. She was quite perplexed that her host was entirely oblivious to the stench and going about their daily activities, like eating, doing school activities and such without a care about the lingering 'malodour' (at least in my mother's perception).
Like Bong Joon-ho's other film, Snowpiercer (2013), this film is about the clash of the classes. It tells the tale of the Kims, a poverty-stricken but happy, tight-knit family of Papa, Mama and two young adult children, a boy and a girl. They scrape through life, doing odd jobs and living in a filthy basement apartment. A job offer comes when the son is offered to replace his friend as a tutor to the affluent Park's daughter. Slowly one by one, the previous servant and driver of the Parks are terminated with the Kims devious plans. Pretty soon, Papa Kim, Mama Kim and Sister Kim join the Park household as employees in various capacities.
The drama unfolds when the previous servant comes back with a vengeance as she lost more than a job when she was pink-slipped. Even the elements of Nature seem to thwart the Kims' desires to unshackle themselves from poverty.
A thought-provoking flick. 4.5/5.
Direction and Story: Bong Joon-ho
Yet another genre-bending offering from the land of kimchi. It is a thriller, a comedy, a dark one and a gory one too, for there is a blood bath at the end of the movie. But above all, it is a social satire.
The sensation of smell is often described as one of Man's most primitive senses. Olfactory perception is quite impressive. Its nerve endings are in such close proximity with the brain and are one of a few neurons in our brain, which is capable of regeneration. Even though it is assumed that our olfactory bulb, where sensory input converges, is underdeveloped, as our primitive survival skills dwindled when we became gatherers and farmers, we are still said to be able to identify up to a trillion different odours. The olfactory bulb is also one of the areas of the brain where neuroplasticity has been shown. At least in rodents, it has been illustrated to regenerate over the lifespan. Our olfactory sensation is under-credited than what it is capable of. Our smelling 'prowess' is shown in many professions - wine tasting and culinary industry being two common examples.Our sense of smell has a profound and prolonged effect on our psyche. Just ask ourselves how much smells of our childhood, when life was so much more straightforward, gives us a fuzzy feeling inside. Simple things like the bodily odour of our mother or of freshly baked cookies give us indescribable warmth or reassurance that everything would be all right.
On the other hand, there are certain smells that we just want to be released from our systems. A person wishing to uproot himself from his previous working-class background would be all too familiar with the effects of toiling long hours under the heat of the sun. He would associate fermenting strong odour with the first sign of poverty. Even how much he tries to mask with perfumes and aesthetics, to the outsider, it is apparent. And he may want to run away from his chequered past.
It is also interesting that our mind somehow can 'cancel off' some smells that we are entrenched in. Like stupidity, body odour is for others to realise. My mother once visited her friend. In her small home backyard, she reared a few cows. My mother could hardly endure the one hour that she spent there. Everywhere she smelled cow dung even though the house was far from the cowshed was quite a distance away. She was quite perplexed that her host was entirely oblivious to the stench and going about their daily activities, like eating, doing school activities and such without a care about the lingering 'malodour' (at least in my mother's perception).
Like Bong Joon-ho's other film, Snowpiercer (2013), this film is about the clash of the classes. It tells the tale of the Kims, a poverty-stricken but happy, tight-knit family of Papa, Mama and two young adult children, a boy and a girl. They scrape through life, doing odd jobs and living in a filthy basement apartment. A job offer comes when the son is offered to replace his friend as a tutor to the affluent Park's daughter. Slowly one by one, the previous servant and driver of the Parks are terminated with the Kims devious plans. Pretty soon, Papa Kim, Mama Kim and Sister Kim join the Park household as employees in various capacities.
The drama unfolds when the previous servant comes back with a vengeance as she lost more than a job when she was pink-slipped. Even the elements of Nature seem to thwart the Kims' desires to unshackle themselves from poverty.
A thought-provoking flick. 4.5/5.
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