In an especially unforgettable scene mid-way through Parasite – the savagely caustic 2019 hit movie directed and co-written by Bong Joon-ho – the middle-aged con woman Chung-sook Kim plaintively compares the evident differences in her personality to that of her family’s primary victim, the blithely trusting Mr. Park. “She’s nice because she’s rich,” says the grifter, “Hell, if I had all this money, I’d be nice too.”
It’s an especially resonant sentiment for our times, with the global economy paralysed by the worst inequalities recorded in the modern era, and the top 1% of the planet’s inhabitants securely in possession of more wealth than the remaining 99% combined . As his movie swept the Palme D’or at Cannes, and four Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Director), Bong kept saying he wanted to represent the collective anxieties of…