Grievance against the Lack of It

"There is a close relationship between the mentality that results in bureaucratic organisation and the mentality of capitalism. Socialism and capitalism are both essentially materialist, just different ways of approaching the lifeless world of matter and deciding how to share the spoils."

Iain McGilchrist, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World"

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Dear Kate,

Finally I watched "Parasite" last night, and it was a major disappointment, which is probably not fair to the movie, for it didn't ask to be called a masterpiece until the world decided to crown it king.  I expected greatness, and that, I hope, is compliment enough to the filmmakers.

Still, the disappointment: not for it being too obvious in giving the "upstairs-downstairs" genre the twist of a torture chamber, one that stands in as a metaphor for the underbelly of human soul that's been "green-lighted" too many times in the "Asian extreme cinema" to retain its figure as a speech, but for it being surprisingly predictable, prosaic in traveling down the old familiar road purportedly made fresh and perceptive.  I don't know about you, but I was a step ahead of the story all the way through, and had a better obligatory final bloodbath in mind. (Don't you think feeding sausage to the dogs is way too pedestrian even for only half-hearted sadism?).  Not for a moment did I believe in any of the character, which is a fatal flaw for a black comedy, having the joke turn in upon itself and became self-conscious, finally wrapping things up with voice-overs as social commentary.

It was a mildly entertaining lecture on the effect of capitalism, preached ironically by the winning side of the money game.  I am sure there will be (and likely already are) sociological papers written on the movie's rising, riding the waves of globalization, the success of Korean enterprises in the West, and, not least, the showcasing of the Asian face in pop-culture to, first and foremost, make the presentation likable.  No one buys anything that demands an overcoming of a dislike.  But I digressed.

One point I want to stick to today, one question: How would the movie be different if it's made by someone who's a "parasite," living in the underbelly, torture chamber of a civilization?  Of course the most obvious answer is that the movie would likely not be made at all.  And if it is it will be of low production value, meaning, not likable.  Not marketable, that is.  No one would know about it, I mean.  Forever shut away from the cushioned, pop-corn-greased seats of respectable cinema.  When was the last time my teens went into an air-conditioned cinematic chamber and came back to report art-house greatness to this father?  Never before this.  Likely will never again.  They too rode a great wave.

I didn't smell poverty, and that would be my most adamant grievance against the movie.  Shits were shooting out of a toilet bowl and piss flying mid-air in slow-mo, but dammit, I didn't smell the grievance of the "parasites."  I was told of the smell many times in the movie, and the word metaphor appeared literally (if I counted it right) at least 4 times in the dialogues.  But what is the "something else" that this supposedly allegorical story is pointing out for me?  And, more importantly, what is it asking of me?

Show me the true parasites and I will speak to you about cinema.

Yours, Alex