When they discovered the other family in the basement I remember thinking "alright, if you two groups can compromise and work this out this doesn't need to end in chaos"... but of course we all know what happened. If I remember correctly I interpreted this struggle more caused by the poor family's ruthlessness than anything else. I think it might be a bit of a stretch to just chalk up this sometimes sociopathic ruthlessness to their class position but I could have missed something.

It's funny because even as a capitalist I was rooting for them up until a point. I understand their desire to get out of poverty and secure their position in the rich household. I just don't think that this drive to succeed is at all limited to the poor though... just think of financial crimes and movies that portray rich people who have that same mindset. Is that born out of their social class? Does the criminal investment banker get the same treatment?

I was trying to see it through Bong’s lenses rather than my own, considering his past films. It seems obvious to me that the flood was referencing the floods of 2014. — NOS4A2

Fair enough. There is an interesting argument to be had here over over good or effective art and films. But maybe for another time.

But your take that it is a subversively conservative film, isn’t this your assumed lense? That might be the point of Bong’s all along.

That was a bit click-baity. As stated in the OP, my argument would be along the lines of a veil of ignorance. Let the movie have its own voice. And I tried to defend that, not just assume it.

If I remember correctly I interpreted this struggle more caused by the poor family's ruthlessness than anything else. I think it might be a bit of a stretch to just chalk up this sometimes sociopathic ruthlessness to their class position but I could have missed something. — BitconnectCarlos

Actually this might be one of the few scenes in the movie that indicates a class problem. The old maid does at first plead to work together, sort of. But at soon as the old maid is presented with the opportunity, she tries to turn the tables on the poor family, behaving in the same way.

Though there is a way to interpret this differently, so again it may be underdetermined. The old maid was pleading when she didn’t know the new maid had tricked her and the rich family. When she finds out it’s a farce is when she turns on them.

Fair enough its been a while since I saw the movie. I tended to remember the poor family as the stronger of the two groups as well as the more ruthless group just in terms of how they were going about the whole scenario. I guess even if we pin the two groups as equally self-interested I think it's still their lack of (class) unity which is their downfall.

I thought back to Parasite after seeing another film with a somewhat similar theme. To be honest, for all its sleek execution and obvious talent, Parasite turned me off by its heavy-handed messaging (in retrospect, the Oscar win wasn't very surprising). The dream sequence at the close of the film is a good illustration of that. At first I thought that the filmmakers were finally going for a little subtlety by ending the film right there at the happy reunion. Let the viewers work it out for themselves and then congratulate themselves on their perspicacity. But no, they had to drive the message home, lest someone might be confused by the ambiguity, and so they cut back to the half-crazed boy sitting in his squalid banjiha.

The socially conscious film that I would like to recommend as an antidote is Shoplifters (2018) by the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. And if you like that, see Nobody Knows (2004) and Still Walking (2008), which I think are even better. I hear that Kore-eda's output is uneven, but these three are excellent.

Also, anything by the Dardenne brothers.