Anatomy of a Scene: The white-eyed “ghost” appears in ‘Parasite’
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite undeniably stands as a masterpiece that defies categorisation. Seamlessly interweaving dark humour, social commentary, and intense drama, this film speaks a universal language that resonates with audiences from all walks of life. Whilst the movie is a masterpiece worthy of its Oscar and chock-full of exquisite moments, one scene stands out for the terror it evokes.
Parasite unfurls the tale of two families, the Parks and the Kims, each starkly contrasting the other. The Parks, epitomising the elite, dwell in a modernist mansion, shielded from the world’s dirt and grime, while the Kims, a tight-knit clan of hustlers, are tucked away in a semi-basement, grappling daily with poverty’s grip. The story takes flight when Ki-woo, the Kim family’s son, fortuitously becomes an English tutor for the Parks’ daughter. What follows is a meticulous infiltration by the Kims into the Parks’ household, displacing the existing staff under devious pretexts.
Amidst this intricate web of deceit and class warfare, there’s a subtle subplot delicately threaded through. Young Da-song, the Park family’s son, is hinted to have experienced trauma on his previous birthday. This mysterious event is alluded to several times, with Parks mentioning how he’s been different since then – more distant and prone to erratic episodes. The audience is left to piece together the vague puzzle, creating an undercurrent of suspense.
Against this backdrop, the pivotal ‘ghost’ flashback sequence, the subject of our exploration, finds its haunting place. Da-song’s trauma, we discover, is rooted in a chilling encounter where he witnesses a man’s eyes eerily peeking out from the depths of the basement in the dead of the night. To him, it was a ghost, an embodiment of his deepest fears. But little did he know, it was a man, Geun-sae, hidden away, unbeknownst to the Park family, in a secret bunker beneath their home.
The ghost of victims’ past
With this context in hand, the sheer gravitas of the ‘ghost’ scene comes into sharp focus. The uncanny imagery of Geun-sae’s eyes, illuminated only by the faintest light, captures a moment emblematic of the entire film’s ethos. This isn’t merely a scene of horror for horror’s sake; it’s a tangible manifestation of the unseen, the hidden, and the repressed – themes that Parasite masterfully unravels. And yet, in the initial visceral moments of reaction, before the subtext and meaning can be formed in the viewer’s minds later, it is nothing short of sheer, abject horror.
Joon-ho’s genius lies not just in crafting an engaging story but in embedding layers of meaning within seemingly simple scenes. The ‘ghost’ sequence becomes a mirror, reflecting the chasm between the privileged and the destitute, between the visible and the invisible, between those living in the light and those lurking in the shadows. The terror that grips Da-song is more than childhood fear; it’s an almost primal dread, speaking to our collective anxieties about confronting the uncomfortable truths lurking beneath the surface of our societies.
It’s such a fleeting moment in the movie, but it remains one of the most potent images – one that permeates the mind and haunts your subconscious long after the credits have rolled. The potency of the terror in the scene comes as much from the built-up and suspenseful backstory as it does from the pure simplicity of it.
It’s a single, static shot that allows very rudimentary action: a man’s head emerging from a hole in the floor. But, thanks to the carefully calibrated lighting and exquisitely curated production design, the image of someone with wide eyes ascending induces a physiological reaction that causes your heart to stop, your hair to rise, and your stomach to tighten.
Slow, static, and patient horror
While it’s evocative of the simple imagery of ‘horror’ from a century ago, reminiscent of certain characters entering in the likes of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and even the vampiric classic, Nosferatu, it also neatly falls into another trend of horror-through-simplicity which Asian cinema so deftly generates. In Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo, the director achieves a similar gut-wrenching moment of primitive fear with a simple, patient shot of a woman walking down a hallway. With the most rudimentary tools, the likes of Kurosawa and Joon-ho can generate the most extraordinary responses.
In Parasite, through Da-song’s trauma and Geun-sae’s desperate, haunting gaze, we’re given a fleeting glimpse into the very soul of a society, its stark disparities, and the hidden lives that, though out of sight, are very much intertwined with our own. The scene transcends its cinematic confines, becoming a profound commentary on the human condition, on our innate fears, and on the societal barriers that we, perhaps unknowingly, help erect.
