FILM POSTER: PARASITE REVIEW

 

PARASITE- FILM POSTER REVIEW

From this poster on the film Parasite, as an audience you can start to develop a sense of the characters within the film as this poster recognizes their joint importance which immediately sets the tone for their joint involvement throughout the film.

Starting with the legs positioned in the bottom left of the poster; this poses as an initial insight into what this may symbolize later on in the film- death? Additionally, the placement of these legs being in the foreground of the poster also confirms their undeniable importance in relation to the plot of the film. From a mise-en-scene aspect of it, I can defer the colouration of the limbs, whether that be editing or makeup, seems to be slightly discolored and pasty looking, which leads to the question of is this specific placement to introduce a forestatement of a death later on. This immediately sets up the genre for the film- thrilling and mysterious.

 Moving on, I can also defer the subtle, yet powerful use of black and white censored lines to cover the eyes of each character In this poster and what perhaps this may mean in relation to the status of each character; using this with the positions of the characters and their body language, I can depict the obvious difference between those standing up, who are censored with black lines covering their eyes and to those laying, comfortably down on deck chairs or the boy standing safely in the comfort of his home are all censored with a white line.

 Furthermore, one could also inspect the colour choices in relation to defining their social status; white suggesting ‘pure’ and ‘wealthy’ and black completely contrasting this-’deceiving’ and ‘poor’. In relation to the colour choices of the censor lines, this is also mirrored in the colour choices of their costumes, again emphasising this juxtaposition of social class, ‘importance’ and distinguishment of the characters. This bazaar concept worked extremely well in distinguishing the political aspect of the film and what in fact it is actually trying to challenge; along with the censored lines, this poster is shot in an extreme long shot, detailing in each character (to show their shared importance), their environment (a modern, 21st century ‘home’) and their placements within the shot.  

Concluding from all of this detail of the characters within this shot, as an audience member you can already begin to infer the set tone of the film; its modernistic approach from the bizarreness of the character placements, their environment and other factors including the ominous placement of lined censors hiding their eyes, initially invite the sense of an extremely though captivating concept, murder mystery, and a provocation of the socio-economic spectrum currently. 

 

Off the assumption from this poster, I can defer that the plot will contain a lot of chaos and from the detailing of the multiple characters in the poster, the story is sure to contain an equal amount of individuality from each character within the poster, which should form a fast paced, chaotic, and tense atmosphere. 

Furthermore, the most memorable aspect of this brilliant poster would have to be the limp, pale limbs placed indirectly in the bottom left corner, leaving a huge indication of what the plot may contain- murder. This in tie with the with the setting of this shot creates an even more striking aspect, as the seemingly ‘perfect’ modern, not to mention beautiful family home concept is being brutally infected with this image of death and decay. 

Moreover, the amount of natural depth that is within the poster introduces this deceptive notion as the colour green stereotypically symbolises new life, nature and freshness yet completely contradicts the undeniable dystopian and threatening element created immediately. This forces the speculation of a deceiving element in the film which is also backed up the text at the bottom of the poster, “act like you own the place”, feeding into the element of fraud.

 In addition to this natural element embedded within, the use of camera composition using a deep focus pulls on the suggestion that the characters immediate environment plays an important role in the plot and that theory of displacement from the differing socio-economic positions of the characters that I briefly touched on earlier. This leaves an obvious assumption to the film's plot involving the huge concept of money and social standing. In summary, this poster gives an extremely invasive insight to specific detailing and even non-specific elements to the film; the denotation of the poster itself has a lot of depth even on surface level from the multiple characters to the censored lines over their eyes and then to the connotation of what these ‘minor’ details actually mean along with their hints at the plot, genre and tone.