Parasite Boon Joon Ho, Barunson E&A, 2019
ARCH7035 | 2020 Critical Historical Practices Cinema & Architecture Participation Yucheng Dai a1700892@student.adelaide.edu.au
PARASITE
Boon Joon Ho, Barunson E&A, 2019
ARCH7035 | 2020 Critical Historical Practices Cinema & Architecture Participation Yucheng Dai a1700892@student.adelaide.edu.au
Figure 1: Official movie poster of “Parasite”.
Figure 2: Kim family’s semi-basement apartment (Banjiha).
Figure 3: Park family’s exclusively designed sumptuous ultra-modern mansion.
Figure 4: Moon-gwang and Geun-sae couple’s fully closed filthy underground bunker.
Objective + Key Phrases • Study the selected film in terms of its relationship to architecture. • Consider techniques such as montage or movement, how architecture frames the narrative? • How architecture is used to make a comment on broader social and political themes? • How architecture is used in the production of images, both real and imagined. • How is the architecture within the film used to help tell the story?
• • • • • • • • •
Confliction + Superposition Complexity + Opaque Lunatic + Babelism Humanity + Merciless Dramatize + Metaphor Humour + Irony Foolishness + Sensitive Subordination + Enclosure Ambiguity + Parasitism
• • • • • • • • •
Imagined + Real Unconventional + Raw + Realistic Uncertainty + Precision Out of Control + Stratagem Obtrusion + Escaping Poor class + Wealthy class Symbolism + Phenomenology (in architecture) Submissive + Oppressive Identity + Personality
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Figure 5: The clutter narrow alley.
Figure 6: The wide steep driveway and high residential exterior.
Figure 7: A wall of exquisite dinnerware with a rectangular black passage in the middle.
Confliction + Superposition Throughout the entire film, director Boon Joon Ho has portrayed a striking contrast between the typical social classes by deliberately superimposing and articulating the living spaces where the three families live (Kim’s family, Park’s family & Moon-gwang and Geun-sae couple): a small semi-basement apartment (so-called Banjiha) crouches in the depression of urban, an exclusively designed luxurious mansion stands on the hill, and a fully closed filthy underground bunker hides in the ground.
When Ki-woo first visited the Park’s family, the scene shifted from the clutter narrow alley to the wide steep driveway and high residential exterior, companied with the emotional changes of Ki-woo. The instantaneous change of the building volume and the difference in the height of the building location not only give the audience a sense of visual impact but also eventually create an intertwining of chiasmatic turning, socially and emotionally.
Inside the Park family’s villa, a rectangular black passage is inlaid in the middle the wall of exquisite dinnerware. Under the warm lights projected from both sides of dinnerware, the entrance of the passage acts as an empty unknown abyss, which subsequently became the most frightful hidden danger and the source of the major conflict in the Park family’s villa.
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Figure 8: A row of small windows in Kim family’s semi-basement.
Figure 9: Park couple cuddling on the sofa.
Figure 10: Kim family were lying down underneath the large table and holding their breath.
Figure 11: The continuous stairs.
Symbolism + Phenomenology In the filmdom, the thought-provoking symbolism has always been the idiosyncrasy of Boon Joon Ho’s film. In this “Family tragicomedy”, a sequence of “Elaborate chaos” mixed with metaphorical lens language. A row of small windows in Kim family’s semi-basement may symbolise a glimpse of hope while the stifling bunker may represent the anguish of despair. In the Park family’s villa, the bunker not only contrasts with the mansion spatially but also indicates the “invisible” poor who socially “does not exist” in the eyes of the rich.
In the stormy night scene, the Kim family were lying down underneath the large table and holding their breath, while the Park couple were cuddling on the sofa and caressing each other. The similar postures with totally different mental processes and physical positions, from “act like you own the place” convert to “back to where you belong”, ironically reveal the parasitic relationship and the gap between the different social statuses.
Another impressive scene is when the Kim family sneaked away and ran home in the heavy rain. The rain was pouring down and washing down the steps and flooding the bottom of the city. The descending topography and the continuous stairs both represent unutterable desperation and a sense of helplessness.
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Figure 12: Hermann Rorschach.
Figure 13: Décalcomanie (Decalcomania).
Figure 14: A set of Décalcomanie
Figure 15: Art | decalcomania.
(Decalcomania).
Notes The previous names of the film were Rorschach and Décalcomanie. Rorschach Named after Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach. He invented a psychology test called the Rorschach inkblot test: paint some ink on one side of the paper, fold it in half to create an almost symmetrical image, then ask the patient what images they see from the inkblot image, and diagnose them.1
Décalcomanie Using the Rorschach inkblot test process, the kind of picture generated by folding is called Décalcomanie (Decalcomania). The two sides of the image are very similar but not perfectly identical.2
The two sides of image/paint: Represent the movie and reality, the two poor families, or the relationship between the rich and poor? …
Also, in the art realm, the surrealist Oscar Domínguez referred to his work as “decalcomania with no preconceived object”. Using gouache spread thinly on a sheet of paper or other surfaces (glass has been used), which is then pressed onto another surface such as a canvas.
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Figure 16: Ki-jung poses as “Jessica”, an art therapist to the Parks’ young son.
Figure 17: The internal space and spatial ambiance of the mansion.
Figure 18: Behind-the-screen.
Endnotes + Image Credits (only for Notes part) 1:
HimmTV, “Ten Things only Koreans Would Know About Parasite,” YouTube Video, 17:17, 14 February 2020, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXlkkkkKqAQ&t=561s.
2:
Ibid.
Figure 1:
Barnes, Sara, and Pinar Noorata. “‘Parasite’ Fans Are Celebrating the Ingenious Film with Their Own Alternative Movie Posters”, My Modern Met, 10 February 2020, Accessed 27 August 2020. https://mymodernmet.com/parasite-best-picture-tribute.
Figure 2-11:
Parasite. Dir. Boon Joon Ho. Barunson E&A, 2019. Netflix. Web. 25 August 2020.
Figure 12:
Ricardo Vieira Teles Filho. 2020, “Hermann Rorschach-From klecksography to psychiatry,” Dement Neuropsychol, no. 14: 80.
Figure 13:
Ibid., 81.
Figure 14:
Ruble, Kimberly. 2013, “Hermann Rorschach and His Inkblot Test (Video),” Guardianlv, Accessed 27 August 2020. https://guardianlv. com/2013/11/hermann-rorschach-and-his-inkblot-test-video.
Figure 15:
Domínguez, Oscar. 2012, “Art | decalcomania,” Decalcomaniaproject, Accessed 27 August 2020. https:// decalcomaniaproject.wordpress.com/decalcomanias/art-2.
Figure 16-18:
Parasite. Dir. Boon Joon Ho. Barunson E&A, 2019. Netflix. Web. 25 August 2020.
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