THE ARCHITECTURE SHOULD HAVE WON AN OSCAR FOR SUPPORTING ROLE

Parasite, the South Korean thriller directed by Bong Joon-ho, follows the
impoverished Kim family, who lie about their qualifications in order to gain employment
with the wealthy Parks. The film finally hits UK cinemas this weekend, after months of
critical hype and illegal streaming. But what’s smarter and subtler about Parasite is the
way that the film deploys architecture, using two homes built from scratch in a
remarkable, Oscar-nominated feat of production design, to tell its story. We are
informed early on that a famous, entirely fictional, architect built and lived in the Park’s
family home. It’s a clear signal to the audience to pay close attention to the two
building's design.
The film opens in the home of the Kim family, who live in a dungeon-like basement
room deep down in the belly of Seoul, barely surviving off a communal salary folding
pizza boxes. Our first glimpse of the aggressively Park family’s abode is when Ki-woo,
the Kim’s industrious son, wanders up to apply for an interview as their tutor.
The Parks live in a modern fortress atop a sunny hill at the city’s highest peak. The
choice of this modernist style of home, which parallels the designs of real-life architects
like Richard Neutra, Louis Kahn or Frank Lloyd Wright, mirrors a current urge for this
kind of architecture among ‘new money’ types.
The Parks, who made their money in tech, fetishise western culture. Their son plays
cowboys and Indians, and the family wear pajama's, (not typical, according to Bong, in
Korea). This fetishisation extends to their residence, which would look right at home in
the Hollywood hills. The house’s architectural design, boxy, minimalist, open plan,
complete with uninterrupted glass to drink in the sun, also plays heavily into the plot.
The style, beyond making the space easier to film, contrasts with the clutter of the Kim’s
house. The Production Designer wanted to show the increasing density that reflects the
class difference between elevated areas and lower ones as appearances change from
the rich house to the semi-basement neighborhood.
The architecture also influences the two family’s relationships to sunlight. The poorer
you are, the less sunlight you have access to, and that’s just how it is in real life as well.
The Park house was built to glow with the sun’s position (Ki-woo is literally blinded by
the sun on his first arrival at the house). Its great glass wall, which we learn the architect
designed to appreciate the garden, has a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, like a cinema screen.
The contrast with the view from the Kim family’s house, where drunks piss outside their
bar-covered window and yellow stink bug spray floods the kitchen, could not be starker.
For the Parks, the weather is entertainment, sun lights the home, rain sustains the
garden, and the rich family gather and enjoy the view like a glossy tv. The Kim’s home, in
contrast to the Park’s, is terrorised by the elements the rain floods and destroys their
house.