‘The Host’ bottled Bong Joon-ho’s hatred of the establishment long before ‘Parasite’
Many of the industry’s most prominent auteurs return to the same themes over and over again throughout their work, and the very best find a way to paint them in completely fresh strokes each time. Parasite may be Bong Joon-ho‘s most successful movie from a commercial and awards-laden standpoint, but his signature themes have been in play as early as 2006’s The Host.
Crafting a socially-conscious and darkly comedic thriller that earned over $260 million at the box office and won Academy Awards for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Original Screenplay’, and ‘Best International Film’ is one way to enjoy a serious uptick in mainstream attention, awareness, and recognition, but Joon-ho had been shining a light on current and prescient issues in his native South Korea since the very beginning of his career.
His second feature – 2003’s Memories of Murder – finds two detectives tasked to solve a grisly death and uncover the nation’s first serial killer. The overriding theme is that justice is an illusion no matter who tries to impose it and how they try to achieve it, but it was his follow-up, The Host, that first turned his attention towards class and wealth inequality, social injustice, the perils of capitalism, and environmental dangers as they apply to both nature and the constructs people are often forced to surround themselves with to survive.
The story begins with American military forces dumping chemicals into the Han River, which gives rise to a fearsome creature that begins devouring the locals. It might be a fantasy film with a monster at its centre, but The Host was nonetheless derived from the very real story of an army mortician pouring embalming chemicals into a drain that connected to the Han, which is the main source of Seoul’s drinking water.
Having such a blatant disregard for those outside of their immediate purview, the way pollutants both literal and figurative wreak havoc on society and drive many residents to despair, dismay, and death, the shared trauma of societal and social collapse, and the way the have-nots are shunned, overlooked, ignored, and left to their own devices by those in power find The Host reflecting sentiments held by the Korean public, which have carried right through to Parasite.
Snowpiercer is by far the most obvious, with the post-apocalyptic world literally separating the last remnants of humanity into the broken, beaten, and poor collection who live in poverty at the rear end of the train and the luxurious surroundings enjoyed by the affluent subsect towards the front. The line is patently, abundantly clear, and the same can be said of how Parasite clearly displays the discrepancies between the Kim and Park families through its framing, shot composition, and dovetailing arcs.
Even Okja dabbles in many of the same themes, with Joon-ho once more exploring the possibilities of what can happen when capitalism goes unchecked, this time through the lens of agriculture, the animal kingdom, and genetically-modified farming. Parasite is decidedly less fantastical than his previous handful of films, but it ticks many of the same boxes and shines an even harsher spotlight upon them by unfolding in a reality that’s only fractionally heightened from real life.
It’s clear that the Oscar-winning director is no fan of the wealthy upper classes, ruling powers, and governing bodies using a number so few to dictate the fates of many, and not just because he’s spent over a decade and a half repeatedly espousing that same point. In fact, it’s not even difficult to imagine The Host, Okja, Parasite, and Snowpiercer unfolding in either a concurrent or chronological shared timeline, such is the way Joon-ho underlines the same points with such power in every single one of them.
