I’ve been wanting to see the hit Korean movie Parasite even since it won the Academy Award for best picture but am too distracted by COVID restrictions and the hassles of life interrupted. Parasite was a small hit in Japan but when combing comments on Japanese blogs and forums, it’s clear the movie resonates with older views much more than younger ones. In particular it’s the older viewers who grew up and came of age in the Showa era who appreciate the social tensions and dynamics at play. Younger viewers just scratch their heads.
This kind of Showa is brilliantly portrayed in the 1982 movie ‘Giwaku’ (Suspicion) and Kaori Momoi’s legendary award winning performance. The last scene of her pouring wine on the lawyer who saved her life, played by Shima Iwashita is often called ‘over the top’ by western reviewers, but it is not. People who lived in that era know that particular coveting creature: wanting someone else’s something but also wanting the worst for that someone, a spiritual poverty of measuring one’s happiness by a particular persons misfortune.
It’s the same dark side sometimes implied, but never directly expressed, in the Japanese expression ‘mura shakai’ (village society/村社会) being closed off from society. It’s almost gone but still survives in tiny pockets. It’s not physical isolation but isolation in the minds of groups who close themselves off. A Sado friend told me about a recent event in one small corner of the island know to be that way. A Japanese man retired there from outside the island. He was mistakenly diagnosed as infected with COVID-19 (PCR tests are only 40% accurate). Village locals discreetly harassed him and damaged his house to the point where it was inhabitable. Only after he was driven out did the local hospital say they made a mistake, that his test was negative. It played out in the dark, off the record, nobody acknowledging anything.
We may snicker as such human behavior and think our modern selves above it, but the parasite mind is alive and well on social media. When cultural warriors who are only happy when they destroy peoples reputation and remove them from public life, that’s the parasite mind at work. Meanwhile I keep telling myself that I’ll catch up and finally watch Parasite…when things calm down…if they ever do.