Parasite (Bong Joon-Ho, 2019)

Mini-essay (2 pages)

Find a way into one of this week’s films by examining a cinematic element that you believe is crucial to your making meaning from the experience of viewing it.

Use MLA or APA citation style.  Research outside sources and/or use the sources in this week’s readings as starting points.  Be sure to cite any information you include in your essay.

Here are some suggestions for questions to structure your essay:

  1. Analyze the ways in which smell is utilized in the film as theme and social comment.
  2. Analyze the term parasite and the multiple ways that it can be explained in the film.
  3. Are there oversimplifications or stereotypes that get in the way of the overall cleverly constructed message in the film?
  4. Is this the first movie that could be considered worthy of a Best Picture (not Best Foreign-Language Film) Oscar?
  5. Analyze the use of genre(s) in the film. Note the place where the film makes a dramatic turn in genre.
  6. Compare the film to another of the director’s films, focusing mostly on analysis of Parasite and making brief comparison to another film.
  7. Analyze the lighting and use of framing in the film. How is meaning made in these ways?
  8. Does the film present a universal theme?
  9. Where does the viewer’s sympathy lie? Which characters are most endearing?
  10. Define and analyze gender roles in the film.
  11. Analyze the film’s settings with careful attention to elevation, up and down, stairways, movement and space.
  12. Analyze the ways in which architectural design was key to the story.

 

Feel free to devise your own approach if you like.  Ask/discuss with me first to be sure that it will work.