Think for a second about a world in which the truth is utterly irrelevant.
If somebody wants something another person has, he or she merely makes the requisite noises, adopts the necessary postures. Little matter if those noises happen to be words, and those words happen to be untrue. The important, even necessary, thing is to squawk and preen, intimidate and mislead, whatever it takes, above all else, to succeed.
Effectively, this is the world of Parasite.
At the surface the film tells the story of a struggling, close-knit Korean family whose husband and wife, son and daughter conspire together to infiltrate and manipulate a second, more affluent family. Beneath the surface, though, the film’s fundamental offering is an extended portrayal of humanity indistinguishable from its titular beast.
Sound fascinating? It is – almost.
However pleasing it might be to the eyes (and it is, admittedly, a well-constructed piece of work), as apprehended through the eyes of the heart – what we might call the gaze that looks past all outward flash and attempts to discern the inward spiritual centre of a thing – the story is basically as devoid of substance as a parasite without its host. Or a man who has forgotten his Maker.
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, says the preacher of Ecclesiastes, and in paraphrase, he means that no matter how good a thing looks on the outside, apart from God it cannot help but be ultimately vanus (Latin for “empty”).
And so would life seem to be if, indeed, it only amounted to as much as Parasite suggests: a fleeting struggle between the haves and the have-nots, devoid of truth, transcendence, or anything that might raise one’s gaze from the petty struggles over material inequalities that preoccupy the efforts and anxieties of so many.
Thankfully, though, Christianity proclaims otherwise.
Life is more than this. There is such a thing as truth. And organizing one’s life around, within, and toward the truth is, mysteriously, what makes any given man or woman truly alive.
“Man does not live by bread alone,” Jesus reminds us in the Gospels. “On the day that you eat of it you shall die,” God warns humanity’s first parents. “My son who was dead has returned alive again,” rejoices the generous father in what is often called the parable of the prodigal son.
Each of these passages, fascinatingly, describes human beings as parasitic, in a certain sense. Apart from God a person may well have a heartbeat and yet nevertheless be quite dead.
What constitutes real human life, these biblical passages cumulatively suggest, is a kind of living, working reliance upon a Father whose words not only create, nourish, and celebrate humanity, but actively guide in the ways of truth.
The climactic expression of this Christian belief may well be the words of Jesus Christ, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Way, truth, life: in Christianity, these three things may be intellectually distinguishable but always, in actual fact, come together. Disregard one, and the others get lost with it.
However technically proficient Parasite might be, then, in disregarding from the outset the relevance of the truth, it cannot help but show a way through life that ultimately ends in death.
(Originally published in The B.C. Catholic)