Lecture: ‘The cinematic parasite’

Dana Linssen will give an overview of the parasite in several feature films that have been crucial for the way it is shaped in our collective (unconscious) imagination. After some small detours through related ‘feeding’ tropes such as cannibalism, she will give us some clues on how we could watch and understand this year’s Palm d’Or winner Parasite by Korean film maker Bong Joon-Ho.

Synopsis ‘Parasite’ by Bong Joon Ho:
Ki-taek’s family of four is close, but fully unemployed, with a bleak future ahead of them. The son Ki-woo is recommended by his friend, a student at a prestigious university, for a well-paid tutoring job, spawning hopes of a regular income. Carrying the expectations of all his family, Ki-woo heads to the Park family home for an interview. Arriving at the house of Mr. Park, the owner of a global IT firm, Ki-woo meets Yeon-kyo, the beautiful young lady of the house. But following this first meeting between the two families, an unstoppable string of mishaps lies in wait.

Students are strongly recommended to watch this film before or after this lecture.

Dana Linssen (1966) is philosopher and film critic. For over ten years she has been writing for the Dutch newspaper NRC and until recently she works as the editor in chief of the Filmkrant (1998 – 2019). In 2009 she received the Louis Hartlooper Prize for Film journalism. She is lecturer at ArtEZ, Hogeschool van de Kunsten Utrecht and curator of the Director’s Forum Nederlands Film Festival (NFF) and Critics’ Choice Internationaal Film Festival (IFF).

Students' artwork in reaction to Dana Linssen's lecture

Artwork by Brynja Steinþórsdóttir & Jeremi Biziuk

"The installation consists of a silicone material, in a certain way reminiscent of human skin, mixed with different sorts of short cables surrounded by arrows made from concrete or metal. It creates a kind of confusion, not only in shapes and material but also the direction of the pointing objects, which might be somehow connected to the idea of of parasitic/cannibalistic existence, quite literally going many ways and pointing in different directions, while the more organic piece of the installation remains in the centre, "infected" by the electric wires.”