Eavesdropping At The Movies

It's one of José's films of the year; it leaves Mike cold. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite depicts social inequality in South Korea through a lower-class family that cons its way into working for an upper-class family. We pick our way through the film's structure; its motif of staircases that delineate status and power relations; the way poverty carries with it an inescapable smell, intolerable to the upper class; the two families' experiences of nature and the desire for sunshine. It builds on some aspects of horror, but cannot at all be considered one, either in genre or affect - though the fact that its trailers sold it as such might have something to do with Mike's frosty response. It's an allegorical thriller, every character standing in place of a class or group of people, and its construction is intelligent, thoughtful and tight. For José, it works on a visceral level, the mood and tone emphasising and combining with the structure and metaphor; for Mike, it's a flat experience, a clever essay with definite in