Best Movie of Century: Parasite

The NY Times published 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century List, and first place is the 2019 Korean Parasite!

This is baffling. I suspect that the movie would not have done so well, if in English or set in the USA. Hollywood would not make a movie like this.

If you have not seen it, the main point is that rich people are much too nice to poor people. A rich family is consistently nice to some poor grifters who turn out to have no redeeming values. The rich should have never trusted the poor for anything.

This movie was so widely praised that I believe that everyone liked its elitist message. Do not trust poor people. Keep them away from your family, unless they are carefully controlled and supervised. They are poor because they lack the good character of respectable people, and even if you give them an honest break, they are still disgusting criminals.

If someone smells bad, then trust your instincts and assume that he is a disgusting person. Do thorough background checks. Do frequent checks to make sure that some low-life is not taking advantage of you.

Many critics praised the movie's unflinching honesty. By this I assume they mean that honest decent people achieve the good life by being good citizens, while poor people are like vermin to be avoided.

If you watch the movie, just pretend the Parks are Whites, while the Kims are Blacks.

I asked an AI LLM, and it said that the movie maker intended a more nuanced interpretation, and that it's an indictment of a world where honest paths lead nowhere for many. But that is not the movie at all. The Kims do get honest jobs and kindness, and they turn into evil monsters anyway. There is no ambiguity. The Parks are nice people throughout the movie, and the Kims are very bad.

Reviews by left-wing critics usually have some commentary about rich people have better lives than poor people, sometimes citing data that is not in the movies. They see what they want to see. Yes of course rich people have more than poor people, by definition. But the movie itself does not speak out against this at all. If anything, the movies suggests that poor people should be more limited in their opportunities, so that they do not ruin the lives of nice people.

I conclude that this movie is being praised for its unflinching honesty, but no one wants to say what it is honest about. Because admitting it is elitist.