At first glance, Ilha das Flores and Parasite, separated by thirty years, appear to have little in common. Despite their many surface-level differences, however, they bear striking similarities. Both are dark comedies culminating in brutal tragedy. Each uses food as a lens to critique the destructive nature of capitalism. Both explore the commodification of human labor – and by extension, human lives.
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At first glance, the 2019 Korean thriller Parasite bears little resemblance to the 1989 Brazilian documentary Ilha das Flores. The former, a Best Picture-winning feature film directed by Bong Joon-ho, follows the Kim family as, one by one, they obtain work in the home of the wealthy Parks. The latter, a thirteen-minute short film by Jorge Furtado, traces the life cycle of a tomato as it progresses from farm to supermarket and, finally, to a garbage heap on the Azorean Isle of Flowers. Notwithstanding their superficial differences, however, a remarkable number of parallels can be drawn between the two films. Both are dark comedies that end in brutal tragedy. Each uses food as a vehicle for elucidating the pernicious effects of capitalism. Both depict the commodification of human labor and, as such, of human beings. Each film links capitalism, a system whose primary objective is profit, to the exploitation and degradation of the natural environment, and each provokes the viewer to ponder the meaning of freedom.
Ilha das Flores begins with Mr. Suzuki, a tomato farmer, who sells his produce to a local supermarket. There, Mrs. Anete, a perfume saleswoman, purchases the tomatoes along with pork at the market. Intending to prepare a tomato sauce, she discards one tomato deemed unsuitable. This discarded tomato, along with other waste, is transported to Ilha das Flores, a landfill in Porto Alegre. At the landfill, organic matter considered suitable is fed to pigs, while the remaining waste is left for impoverished women and children to scavenge for food. The film, which employs a pseudo-documentary style with a satirical tone, uses a detached, almost scientific narration to underscore the absurdity of the depicted social dynamics.
Parasite follows the impoverished Kim family as they infiltrate the wealthy Park household through deception, securing jobs under false pretenses. Their success is short-lived when they discover a hidden bunker housing the former housekeeper’s husband, leading to escalating conflict between the two families. When the Parks unknowingly host a garden party above the chaos, violence erupts, as a result of which Ki-taek must go into hiding. The film concludes with Ki-woo fantasizing about earning enough money to purchase the Park house and reunite with his father, a dream that underscores the persistent and pervasive nature of social inequality.
Both Ilha das Flores and Parasite begin with a wry, humorous tone. Even before Ilha das Flores begins, the swelling musical strains of the opening credits bring something unexpected: the caption reads “God doesn’t exist.” Next, amid seemingly reasonable facts and statistics like the longitude and latitude of the setting come the self-evident definitions of words like humans and money, accompanied by Monty Pythonesque animations that highlight the increasing absurdity of the narration. This jocular tone, however, comes to a screeching halt with the sudden footage of the atomic bomb explosion at Hiroshima and emaciated victims of the Holocaust. Here, “the rhetorical disposition of the film shifts from flippancy to absolute seriousness . . . a laughter-trap that snaps shut” (Diffrient). It’s at this point that “the documentary jars viewers’ expectations” for the first time (Pérez Trujillo 148), abruptly becoming a different type of film. These images are precursors to the final, brutal images of the documentary, in which we see the poor of the ironically named Porto Alegre (“Joyful Harbor”), on the ironically named Ilha das Flores (“Island of Flowers”), rummaging through the garbage seeking subsistence by way of spoiled, rotting food deemed unsuitable even for pigs.
Like Ilha das Flores, Parasite has a moment at which it suddenly becomes a much darker movie. The first half of the film is full of humorous moments, as when a self-portrait is mistaken for a chimpanzee. The machinations of the Kims entertain us during the first part of the film; our sympathies are engaged with this family who demonstrate their cleverness and ingenuity at every turn. They all manage to secure jobs with the Park family, beginning with the son, Ki-woo, who is employed as an English tutor for the Parkses’ teenaged daughter Da-hye. His sister Ki-jung then comes in as art therapist for the Parkses’ five-year-old son Da-song. Ki-jung uses trickery to get the family’s driver fired, and their father, Ki-taek, is engaged. A new level of subterfuge – a business card from a supposedly exclusive high-end company – leads to the mother, Chung-sook’s, ascent to housekeeper, but not before the Kims dispose of the previous housekeeper by exploiting her severe peach allergy. It is here that we first see the lengths to which the Kims will go, their propensity even for violence, if necessary. Like the footage of Hiroshima and the Holocaust in Ilha das Flores, the images of Ki-woo and Ki-jung flicking peach fuzz onto the housekeeper, Guk Moon-gwang, from behind, to the accompaniment of jaunty classical music, at once alters the tone of the film. Like the arrow from Da-song’s bow, which shattered the peace and pleasantness of Ki-woo’s leave-taking in an earlier scene, the act catches us off guard. It is revelatory of the family’s ruthlessness and an omen of the violence to come. When we see the actual situation – Moon-gwang returns to the house after being fired because her husband, fleeing loan sharks, has been living in a hidden part of the basement for the past four years – the transformation is complete. Parasite is no longer a comedy; it’s a tragedy waiting to unfold.
A second point of correspondence between the two films is the use of food as a vehicle for highlighting the insidious effects of capitalism. In Ilha das Flores, Furtado chooses the life cycle of a tomato to represent the sequence of production, distribution, and consumption. The film begins with an expanse of tomato plants. The scene is bucolic: green, vibrant plants dotted with red tomatoes against a blue sky, with a single farmer, Senhor Suzuki, engaged in their cultivation like the subject of a Jean-François Millet painting. We later see a salad topped with tomatoes, its crown jewel one that has been fashioned into a rose. From here the tomato becomes a commodity; we’re first shown a pile of tomatoes in a supermarket, then no fewer than seven shelves full of canned tomato products. Like Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s tomato soup cans, these shelves emphasize mechanization, mass production, uniformity – the products of capitalism. Dona Anete, the perfume-selling subject of the film, bypasses the canned tomatoes for fresh ones, but the impression of overabundance made by the shelves carries over in her decision to throw one of the purchased tomatoes in the garbage as she later prepares a meal in her kitchen. A member of the middle-class, she has the luxury of throwing out the rejected tomato as she prepares a sauce to go with pork to feed her family. The women and children living in abject poverty who dig through the trash at the end of the film have no such luxury. In the tomato’s final appearance, it has joined the preponderance of refuse that covers Ilha das Flores, rejected not only by Dona Anete but also by the owner of the pigs who inhabit the island, and thus suitable only for the pitiable creatures whom the narrator – no longer a mischievous accomplice to our amusement but a Greek chorus offering moral guidance – declares lack either the money or an owner to save them from their fate.
Parasite
In Parasite, too, food is used in symbolic ways that represent the victimization of the poor by a capitalist economic system. Throughout the film, food demonstrates the stark divide between the upper and lower classes; “while the Parks have fully stocked fridges and pantries as well as a maid to prepare their every meal, the Kims must buy and consume from vending machines” (Turner 9). At the beginning of Parasite, the family earns a few won by folding pizza boxes for a local restaurant. The image of all four Kims sitting on the floor of their semi-basement apartment surrounded by empty boxes serves as a fitting symbol of the emptiness and want that their poverty occasions (Teimouri 21). As they begin to earn more money, however, they eat better-quality foods, starting with home-cooked and restaurant meals and culminating in their taking over the Parkses’ house when the latter family goes camping, gorging themselves on their food and liquor. During their bacchanal, Ki-jung realizes that she is eating the Park family’s dog treats. The message – even the dogs of the rich eat better than the poor – echoes that of Ilha das Flores – even the pigs of livestock owners eat better than the poor.
Under capitalism, the workers themselves become a commodity (Marx, 1844). At the same time, capitalism exploits the producers of goods by making them consumers as well, creating objects that correspond to their perceived needs (Marx, Foundations of the Critique). In both Ilha das Flores and Parasite, individuals are defined first and foremost in terms of their labor. Dona Anete is not shown at the opera or in a park or reading a book; she is shown selling perfume at a profit (i.e., benefiting from the labor of others), shopping, and performing labor in her home. Senhor Suzuki, likewise, is described as working twelve hours a day. He is important to the story not because of anything inherent to him – indeed, all we learn about him personally is that he is Japanese, with the attendant physical characteristics, and therefore human – but because he produces tomatoes. What sets the poor of Ilha das Flores apart from these characters is their inability to produce, a condition that signifies their irrelevance under capitalism; those who cannot produce are relegated to the bottom of a hierarchy built on the exploitation of labor to maximize profits. Furthermore, the poor are forced to compete against each other for scant resources. In groups of ten, the malnourished scavengers of the Ilha das Flores are given five minutes each to rummage through the organic waste of the dump, the implication being that their access must be controlled because, as the narrator intones, “There are many of them.”
Parasite
The Kims, likewise, are valued only according to their labor. They do not produce; they serve. Although Kim Ki-taek is a former small business owner, the boom-and-bust economic cycle of capitalism, particularly as it often plays out in South Korea’s fad-embracing society, destroyed his business, leaving him with massive debts (Park). Today every member of his family is at the disposal of the Parks. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the scene in which Yeon-kyo prepares for her son Da-song’s impromptu birthday party. The Kims have realized how precarious their employment with the Parks is, in light of their and the former housekeeper Moon-gwang’s discoveries of each other’s deceptions. Moon-gwang and her husband know that the Kims are all members of the same family and have been abusing their employers’ trust, while the Kims know that Moon-gwang has been hiding her husband from loan sharks in a secret chamber of the basement for four years. On the day of the party, Ki-taek is at his breaking point. The Kims have lost everything; their apartment flooded, immersing all their belongings in raw sewage. Furthermore, after a physical altercation, they left a seriously injured Moon-gwang and her husband bound and gagged in the basement. As the hour of the party nears, Yeon-kyo prattles on about the party to her friends via cellphone while Ki-taek stares bleakly ahead, alternately pushing her shopping cart, carrying her wine bottles, and bagging her groceries. Like the poor of Ilha das Flores, the two working-class families are in competition with each other while the rich are oblivious to their struggles. It is this universal conflict among the members of the working class, Marx asserted, that enables the owners of capital to subdue and rule over them all (Marx, 1847).
Another parallel between the two films is the connection that each makes between capitalism and environmental destruction. Because capitalism is driven by the need for constant economic growth, it requires the continual extraction of natural resources and exploitation of labor. The drive for infinite growth in spite of finite resources leads to depletion and environmental degradation, the inevitable results of a system for which profit is the primary objective. However, the wealthy are far less likely to suffer the consequences of their own actions. Instead, the poor are disproportionately impacted, and will be even more so in the future (Bhargawa and Bhargava).
Ilha das Flores
Ilha das Flores makes this injustice manifest. The women and children who rummage through the garbage seeking sustenance have no place in a profit-driven system that commodifies human beings as mere sources of labor, because they are incapable of production. In the hierarchy of capitalism, they are bottom-feeders, parasites, a burden to society. But Ilha das Flores rejects this positivistic social Darwinism, showing the poor through a lens of humanism and solidarity. The film asks us to examine our own part in the inhumane cycle of capitalism, the global scale of which is highlighted through details like Senhor Suzuki’s foreign nationality and images representing the Western tradition superimposed with universally recognized name-brand products. The film implicates us, its viewers; “because the framework takes in the whole of human history and geography, then the world of Mr. Suzuki, Dona Anete, and the famished women and children scrounging for food at the end, this world is clearly the same neoliberal global economy as our own” (Chanan 75). As Dorfman affirms, this indictment of our own world calls into question all that we believe about humanity and the world order. “Si hay niños que comen lo que no sirve para los chanchos, entonces todas nuestras verdades deben ser cuestionadas” (Dorfman 228). The filth of Ilha das Flores is the direct result of our – all of our – overconsumption, and the poor will continue to suffer the impacts of our profligacy until we implement a new system based on equity and sustainability rather than greed and extractivism.
In Parasite, the disproportionate impact of climate change on the poor is represented by the flood that inundates Seoul near the end of the movie. For the Parks, the rain is an inconvenience that disrupts their plans to go camping. For the Kims, who live below street level, the flood is catastrophic. Throughout the film, we see them descending into the bowels of the city when they leave the Parkses’ house, going down long flights of steps into the slums of Seoul. Their descent is metaphorical. In the same way that the Kims are subjected to the ravages of floodwaters mixed with untreated sewage, the poor of the Earth, a disproportionate number of whom live in low-elevation coastal areas, are subjected to the ravages of extreme weather brought on by climate change (Barbier). According to recent research, four out of every ten people exposed to flood risk globally are living in poverty (Rentschler et al. 9). But the dangers of climate change for the poor go beyond flooding to include extreme heat, air pollution, drought, famine, food insecurity, and infectious diseases (USGCRP). In 2019, the richest 1 percent of people, with their lavish lifestyles of yachting and taking private jets, were responsible for more carbon emissions than 66 percent of humanity, or five billion people (Oxfam). But, although their emissions will cause 1.3 million heat-related deaths over the decade from 2020 to 2030, the rich themselves are insulated from the effects of their actions. Their vast resources protect them, while those without the means to protect themselves pay for a calamity they did not create (Oxfam). Furthermore, in their desperation to survive, the poor are forced to compete against each other. As noted, the indigent of Ilha das Flores are limited to five minutes each because “there are many of them.” The Kims’ refusal to cooperate with Moon-gwang and her husband ultimately leads to their own destruction (Teimouri 26). Like Furtado, Bong uses subtle details to suggest the global scope of the power divide. Yeon-kyo inserts poorly pronounced English phrases into her conversations, and Da-song’s toys – a teepee, bow and arrow, and Native headdresses – make a mockery of indigenous cultures that practice sustainability and balance with nature. The German family who purchases the Parkses’ home at the end of the film suggests the interchangeability of the rich; whether Korean or foreign, “there is always another family of the same kind to take over, thereby maintaining the social order” (Farahbakhsh and Ebrahimi 112).
Parasite
Both Ilha das Flores and Parasite end by provoking the viewer to reflect on the nature of freedom. In the short, the commentary is explicit; Furtado borrows a phrase from the poet Cecília Meireles (Chanan 76): “Freedom is a word the human dream feeds on, that no one can explain or fail to understand.” Ironically, it is the very freedom of the poor – who, unlike the pigs, have no owner to ensure that they are fed adequately – that condemns them to perdition. But what is freedom worth, in such a case? It calls to mind the definition put forth by Kris Kristofferson in his haunting ballad “Me and Bobby McGee”: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose” (in Uitti).
In Parasite, the loss of freedom that Moon-gwang’s husband Geun-sae suffered when his debts drove him into hiding four years ago plays out again when Kim Ki-taek murders his employer and takes refuge in the hidden bunker of the Park family’s home. Like the poor of Ilha das Flores, Ki-taek’s “freedom” comes at a cost as he replaces one type of prison with another. Ultimately both films put the viewer in the uncomfortable position of examining their own place in a world order that subjugates and oppresses the poor: “How much do we really know or admit about what makes our lives possible? To what extent are we driven by forces that we do not see or understand? […] Powers exist beyond our comprehension – capitalism as god – and result in a bleak predestination. […] Capitalism has ghosts of its own, whether we believe in them or not” (Annis 4). The ghosts conjured up by these films should haunt us all.
Both films highlight the psychological toll of inequality. In Parasite, the Kim family’s resentment towards the Parkses’ obliviousness to their privilege manifests in subtle acts of defiance that escalate into violence. The humiliation and frustration experienced by the Kims reflect the emotional strain that economic disparities impose on marginalized communities. This internalized anger, when left unaddressed, can lead to destructive behavior, as individuals feel compelled to challenge the status quo through any means necessary. The inevitability of violence in contexts of profound inequality is further reinforced by the Kim family’s lack of mobility and opportunity. Their attempts to ascend the social ladder are met with systemic barriers, reflecting the rigid class structures that hinder social mobility. This entrapment fosters a sense of desperation, leading individuals to resort to unethical and even violent means to improve their circumstances. The film suggests that in a society where wealth disparity is vast, the oppressed may feel justified in their actions against the oppressors, viewing violence as a necessary tool for survival or retribution.
Ilha das Flores
Ilha das Flores presents a more observational approach, showcasing the indignity suffered by those at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The film’s detached narration underscores the normalization of such conditions, prompting viewers to question the societal structures that allow for such disparities. The absence of overt violence in the film does not diminish the underlying aggression inherent in a system that forces individuals to compete with animals for survival. This structural violence, characterized by social arrangements that harm individuals by preventing them from meeting their basic needs, is a pervasive consequence of economic inequality.
At first glance, Ilha das Flores and Parasite, separated by thirty years, appear to have little in common. Despite their many surface-level differences, however, they bear striking similarities. Both are dark comedies culminating in brutal tragedy. Each uses food as a lens to critique the destructive nature of capitalism. Both explore the commodification of human labor – and by extension, human lives. Each film draws a connection between capitalism’s profit-driven nature and the exploitation of the environment. Finally, they both challenge viewers to meditate on our own complicity in a system that makes bondage of freedom. In the end, Ilha das Flores and Parasite are not just stories – they are mirrors, forcing us to confront the cost of a world where profit outweighs our humanity.
Works Cited
Annis, Sarina. (2019). “Parasite.” Journal of Religion and Film, 23(2), article 16, pp. 1-5. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol23/iss2/16
Barbier, Edward B. (2015). “Climate change impacts on rural poverty in low-elevation coastal zones.” Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 165, pp. A1-A13. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272771415001912
Bhargawa, Ruma, and Megha Bhargava. (2023, Jan. 13). “The Climate Crisis Disproportionately Hits the Poor. How Can We Protect Them?” World Economic Forum. www.weforum.org/stories/2023/01/climate-crisis-poor-davos2023/
Bong, Joon-ho, director. (2019). Parasite. Barunson E&A.
Chanan, Michael. (2008). “Jorge Furtado’s Island of Flowers.” Journal of Media Practice, 9(1), pp. 73-76, https://doi.org/10.1386/jmpr.9.1.73_5
Diffrient, David Scott. “Stories That Objects Might Live to Tell: The ‘Hand-Me-Down Narrative’ in Film.” Other Voices: The eJournal of Cultural Criticism, 3(1).
Dorfman, Daniela. (2018). “Global Residues: Garbage Dumps and the Right to the City in Brazil. Regarding Ilha das Flores by Jorge Furtado (1989) and Boca de Lixo by Eduardo Coutinho (1992).” Mitologías hoy, 17, pp. 225-243.
Farahbakhsh, Alireza, and Ramtin Ebrahimi. (2021). “The Social Implications of Metaphor in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.” CINEJ Cinema Journal, 9, pp. 87-116.
Furtado, Jorge, director. (1989). Ilha das Flores. Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre,.
Marx, Karl. (1844). Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm
Marx, Karl. (1847). The Poverty of Philosophy. www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htm
Marx, Karl. (1857). Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/
Oxfam. (2023, Nov. 20). “Top 5 Ways Billionaires Are Driving Climate Change.” www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/top-5-ways-billionaires-are-driving-climate-change/
Pérez Trujillo, Axel. (2023). “Exposed Insularities: Islands, Capitalism and Waste in Jorge Furtado’s Ilha das Flores (1989).” The Film Archipelago: Islands in Latin American Cinema, edited by Antonio Gómez, Bloomsbury, pp. 131-151.
Park, Nathan S. (2020, Feb. 21). “‘Parasite’ Has a Hidden Backstory of Middle-Class Failure and Chicken Joints.” Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/korea-bong-oscars-parasite-hidden-backstory-middle-class-chicken-bong-joon-ho/
Rentschler, Jun et al. (2022). “Flood Exposure and Poverty in 188 Countries.” Nature, 13(3527), pp. 1-11.
Teimouri, Mahdi. (2024, June). “The Narrative of Survival: Food and Eating as Motifs in Parasite by Bong Joon-ho.” Sarjana, 39(1), pp. 20-28.
Turner, Emily. (2022). “The Parasite of Society: Food and Class Studies in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.” Digital Literature Review, 8(1), pp. 7-13, https://openjournals.bsu.edu/dlr/article/view/3497
Uitti, Jacob. (2023, Aug. 2). “What Do the Lyrics to the Classic ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ Mean?” American Songwriter, https://americansongwriter.com/what-do-the-lyrics-to-the-classic-me-and-bobby-mcgee-mean/
United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). (2016). “The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment.” https://health2016.globalchange.gov/de
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All images are screenshots from the films discussed.
