"Parasite," by South Korean director Bong Joon, is a masterful depiction of the brutality of capitalism. The film takes the form of a dark comedy, filmed with elements of thriller and horror. It tells the story of the Kim family, who live in a small basement in a poor neighborhood in Seoul and struggle to survive by working a number of poorly paid temporary jobs.
The opening shot of the film shows the daily struggle of the Kim family, consisting of father Kim Ki-taek, mother Chung-suk, son Ki-woo and daughter Ki-jeong, to make ends meet. They get a job folding pizza boxes for a pittance, but their situation deteriorates further when the employer decides to reduce their meager salary on the grounds of their incompetence.
When government sprayers come to spray the neighbourhood, Kei Taek urges family members to keep the windows open. "We'll get free annihilation!" he says.
[Image Credit](ytimg.com)Breaking Point
In the midst of this daily crush, the Kims are getting a glimmer of hope. A school friend offers Ki Woo a job tutoring a daughter from the Park family, who are a wealthy family in Seoul. The only problem is that Ki Woo has never gone to university, despite his obvious abilities, because the family can't afford it. But Ki Woo decides without hesitation to forge a college degree and get a job.
The Park family lives in a dazzling, light-flooded modern house in an upscale Seoul neighborhood, in contrast to the dark basement in which the Kims are forced to live, in a tangible image of the huge difference between two contrasting class families.
After seeing the abundant wealth of the Park family, Ki Woo decided to take a chance. He begins to plot a plot to get work for his entire family, as they maneuver to replace the Park's other servants by carrying out clever and funny sabotage.
The film heightens tension as Kim's plans become more and more violent. It turns out that the main theme of the film is to expose how the extreme poverty of those at the bottom of capitalist society drives them to struggle against each other for survival. The Kims do hateful things, but only because capitalism has pushed them to breaking point and made their lives dependent on those actions.
The Parks, on the other hand, may seem cute, but that's only because the circumstances enable them to be. Ki-taek says of Ms. Park, "She's rich, but she's cute nonetheless." His wife, Chung Suk, replies, "She's nice because she's rich." The Park family, rich in the struggle for survival thanks to their vast wealth, can do beautiful things that are not possible for the Kim family.
[Image Source](https://www.rollingstone.com)Deprivation and corruption
The image of South Korea presented to us in the West is a colossal success story of capitalism. The "Republic of Korea" is compared with its northern neighbor to show the "horrors of communism" against the alleged astonishing technological progress country in the South. But, as every Marxist knows, behind massive development always lies the exploitation and deprivation caused by capitalism, the very deprivation into which the Kims find themselves mired.
Korea did not experience any development under the yoke of Japanese imperialism. At the end of the Korean War in 1953, the South's economy was still largely rural, with a very low standard of living. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the South was completely dependent on the United States, following the dictates of its American masters by relying on the "free market" system for development.
But when the North began to achieve a rapid pace of industrialization on the basis of a planned economy, the South stopped taking the advice of the Americans and moved towards achieving growth through the general planning of the economy. On this basis, South Korea was able to achieve a major economic transformation from a poor third world country to an advanced capitalist country.
This growth was driven by the emergence of giant state-sponsored conglomerates called Chaebols, which came to dominate the economy entirely. The chaebols were run by the country's elite families, who used their corruption and ties to the state apparatus to accumulate vast fortunes. Of course, they made sure to pass their wealth on to their children.
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