Parasite, On Second Watch

Watching Parasite a second time, it was a different film. The first viewing was so dominated by the shock of the ending that everything else got buried — but the second pass made the staircase motif unmissable.

The stairs out of the semi-basement, the stairs of the Park family's home, the stairs descending into the bunker. The characters in this film are almost always on a staircase, above one, or below one. Bong shows it and hides it deliberately.

The stairs are the most honest character in the film.

We talked about it for a long time after the screening that night.