Mise-en-Scene Analysis
In many communities, different traits are seen depending on the era and the type of interactions that the people have. Movies are based on the existing conditions or future concepts that the current community is undergoing. They highlight several themes such as racism, ethnicity and social classism. This paper is an analysis of the issue of social stratification in the movies Snowpiercer and Parasite by analyzing how th issue is expressed in the scenes, lighting, cinematography and messages that the to send.
The movie, the showpiece is based on the life of people ho have survived a pandemic similar to the ice age. It happens after measures by scientists to save the environment go wrong. The people are taken into a train that is managed by a company named the Magnate Wilford. At first, the people live together as a community, but by the year 2031, the people are divided based on their social classes. The rich people are at the front decks such that they have the best services while the poor are segregated to the back of the train with little space and poor means of survival. They have to live in close quarters, and they have no laws that are aimed at them. The armed guards are used to create the segregation by being paid by the wealthy class of people to separate them from the poor. The result of the division is an uprising. The uprising is led by Curtis and his second commander Edgar. They tip off the poor people that the guns of the guards have no ammunition, meaning that they can no longer be a threat to them.
The second movie Parasite also highlights some aspect of classism. The Kim family is one of the poor families in the film.they live in a subbasement that has minimal rent, and their job is to fold pizza boxes. Kiwoo is employed as a tutor to a rich family. She seduces the rich boy-Da-Hye. Ki-Jung also frames Mr Parksd Chauffer for having sex with her, and he is fired and a new driver Ki-Taek is hired to replace him. The plot is very complex as will be analyzed below taking several aspects of classism in the film.
Classism is the segregation that the people have based on their net worth. The rich people seem to be in control of the resources and have some advantage over the law. In such communities, the poor have almost no rights, no means to access justice, no means to get the resources that they need among other mistreatments. The poor also live in poor locations, have poor paying jobs despite the long hours of work that they put in. They also lose their jobs easily when they are found with a mistake. The law appears to be unfair to them.
In the movie SnowPiercer, rich people are seen to control the train. They are the ones who decide which compartments of the train tey want, the pace where the poor will stay, the resources that the poor will get and they control the police force. They tell the police which people are supposed to be kept. The police are kept under the lease of the rich by being bribed. The poor are also kept in the control of the rich since they have o rights t control the movement of the train. There is also the elite class of people who are in charge of organizing the people into their respective couches. The poor have no means to access medicine and other basic needs, while the rich have access to the drugs in plenty. Given the opportunity, the rich people would have gotten rid of the poor people by throwing them out of the train. It seems from the differences that they had they are a bother to them, and they only consume and do not help in production. Decisions are also made by the rich, as seen in the planning of the coup t help reduce the population to sustainable levels. It is hard to ave a large population of people on a train that has limited space. There is likely to be strife and shortage of resources. Planning a coup would lead to chaos and kills several people leading to the reduction of population in the chambers of the train. The rich plan to kill 74% of the residents of the tail chambers without the consent of the poor. It is a measure that is desperate, considering that the people have been held captive in a train for over ten years. It is likely t be a boo in the number of people living in a small space.
In the movie Parasite, there are two main categories of people. The rich such as Da-Hye live in high-quality residences. They are also exposed to a higher system of education, as seen in the hiring of private tutors to come to teach them. This means that the rich are at a higher chance of fo becoming more successful in life compared to the poor. The park Family is made such that they source out human labour from poor households to help their children in the areas that they do not understand in school. The family also has members who have lucrative jobs. The jobs are an assurance of coming capital for them without the fear of pf being fired. The poor, on the other hand, are employed as drivers, private tutors and cleaners in the rich people’s mansions.
The jobs are also not assured since they can easily b fired at the will of the rich people. This is clear when Mr Parks Chauffer is fired after he was framed of having sex with Ki-Jung. The jobs have no retirement benefits, and after one is fired, the contract, the funding, the money and all the benefits are taken away. In the films, the poor people also have yo seek excuses so that they may be granted sick leaves. It is seen in the exploitation of a peach allergy by Kim. She uses the trick on the housekeeper. Another depiction of social class is the job that Ki-Tek family has. They are folders of pizza boxes. It is a job that requires no skill and can be done by anyone making it pay little cash. The result is that the children from the family have no luxuries. They do not have a car, and they have to use public transport to go from one place to another. The rich, on the other hand, have chauffers, cleaners, tutors and other people at their service.
The poor live in basements and have to live in small congested spaces. They cannot afford to rent high-income houses, and most of the time, they crash at each other’s homes. The poor seem united as families, and they stick together whenever they have problems. The trait is seen when Min-Hyuk recommends that Ki-woo takes over the tutoring job he had earlier since he was leaving to study abroad. Concerning the situation that the poor people are in, there is a boom in the loan shark business. The middle and upper class take advantage f the poor people by giving them loans at high interests. They also use crude methods of payment as they loot from the poor for their benefit.
The title of the fils is also a depiction of the core theme in the movie. The poor people have to depend on the rich to survive. They are the ones who give them loans, obs, housing complexes and offer them food. The pizza boxes that the rich people eat the Kim family folds since the poor cannot afford them. The rich have luxuries such as parties and events that spend a lot of money. The poor can only seek to attend them from their rich friends since they cannot afford to hold such extravagant parties.
In conclusion,