On the mechanics of what makes Parasite's script so architecturally precise.

The first act of Parasite is structured like a heist film. The Kims infiltrate the Park household one member at a time, each insertion building on the last. The pleasure is the same pleasure as an Ocean's Eleven sequence — watching competence deployed.

The second act switch is structurally brilliant because it uses exactly the same heist logic against the Kims. They discover that the household they have infiltrated has already been infiltrated, and the revelation triggers a sequence that is one of the great sustained set pieces in recent cinema.

But what distinguishes Parasite from a great thriller is the third act, which refuses the thriller resolution. Nobody wins. The logic of the heist was also the logic of a trap, and the trap closes on everyone.

Bong said in interviews that he was interested in how capitalism produces resentment among the people it victimizes and then directs that resentment horizontally — against other victims — rather than vertically against the system. The script is an embodiment of that thesis. It is also a film you can show someone who has never read a word of social theory and they will understand the thesis completely.