HOST-PARASITE COEVOLUTION: BONG JOON-HO’S URBAN SMELLSCAPES AND CONTAGIOUS TOUCH
HOST-PARASITE COEVOLUTION: BONG JOON-HO’S URBAN SMELLSCAPES AND CONTAGIOUS TOUCH

Summary/Abstract: This paper is an exploration of some of the modes of haptic visuality, smell, touching, being touched and contagious contact in contemporary South-Korean cinema through Bong Joon-ho’s (봉준호) Oscar-awarded 기생충 (Gisaengchung, Parasite) (2019) and his earlier film 괴물 (Gwoemul, The Host) (2006), films that, I would argue, are the most prominent examples and a culmination of the embodied visuality within the contemporary South-Korean cinema. Both films operate as the studies of the internalized forms of capitalism, a phenomenon that, according to Bong Joon-ho (봉준호), “before it’s a massive, sociological term, is just our lives”. This paper looks into the manifestations of internalized capitalism in the everyday lives of Bong Joon-ho’s (봉준호) characters, as well as spatio-temporal structures that, I would argue, best reflect the process of internalization.

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