As part of their Faces of the Korean Woman programme, asianfilmarchive recently screened the classic Housemaid (1960), noting its influence on Parasite (2019); the film currently taking the world by storm.
Quoting Darcy Paquet, asianfilmarchive outlines the common themes of modernity, class, family and capitalism across both films. In The Housemaid: "The two-story home in which Kim sets his film acts as a symbol for Korea's modernizing middle class, yet behind the placid surface we see darker, more primitive elements penetrating into the family's space".
The motif of stairs emerges as a symbol for class politics that links both masterpieces across the (almost) 60 year gap between them. In The Housemaid, the stairs is both a signifier of wealth and a harbringer of doom. Instead of protecting the middle-class family from the destructive jealousy and sexuality of their maid, the stairs facilitates her intrusion into their nuclear unit and the tragedy that unfolds thereafter.
Likewise, in Parasite, stairs is a symbol of wealth but it extends beyond the normative setting of the rich household, trickling into the recesses of society and reaching into the depths of depraved humanity. And so, it widens and morphs into a representation of the gaping economic disparity in Korean society.
If in The Housemaid, stairs warn against the dangers of a rapid modernity; in Parasite, stairs become the vehicle of the insidious cat and mouse chase that lies beneath the sparkling narrative of Korea's global economic success.
FUN FACT : Bong Joon Ho has watched The Housemaid more than 30 times. No wonder the similarities between the films are remarkable!
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