Films for Our Times: “Parasite”

Second in a series, Films for Our Times

“Income inequality” has become cliché, yet it encompasses perhaps the world’s most serious social problem. Bringing cliche to life — making vivid both the lived reality at the very top and the very bottom of the income ladder, as well as the violent climax when these two realities clash — is the South Korean film, “Parasite.” It is a stunner.

Justice is not always a factor at the Oscars, but justice was served, and great art recognized, when “Parasite” swept the big awards at this year’s Oscars — for best original screenplay, best foreign film, best director, and, in a first for a foreign film in the Oscar’s 92-year history, best picture.

Artists understand how difficult it is to portray social and political issues in art: If ideology and ardor overwhelm the artistry, the result is agitprop, something only a propagandist can love. But with vivid characters, revealing interrelationships between those high and low, and universally-understood metaphors that he continually weaves throughout his film, director-screenwriter Bong Joon Ho (also here) avoids agitprop to bring us a tale for our times, which unspools with the power of parable.

The metaphors begin immediately. We meet first the family at the very lowest end of the income ladder — the Kims — who live in a semi-basement. In a semi-basement, with windows high up looking out to the street, the world in all its meanness comes to you; it is, literally, in your face. When their street is…