Cinema Across Cultures: Understanding Differences Through Film
International School of Beijing, 10 Anhua St, Shunyi District, Beijing, China, 100103
Abstract
This research explores how Parasite, In the Mood for Love, and The Intouchables use cinematic techniques to convey cultural differences and invite viewers to engage with unfamiliar perspectives. The chosen films come from three different cultural contexts: Parasite from South Korea, In the Mood for Love from Hong Kong, and The Intouchables from France. This topic is important because films do not only tell stories through plot, but also present culture through environment, behavior, language, sound, wardrobe, visual style, and imagery. I used a qualitative comparative film case study approach. The analysis was organized around four shared categories: environment, communication and social rules, visual techniques, and character perspective. These categories were applied consistently across the three films to compare how each constructs cultural difference and may invite viewers to engage with unfamiliar perspectives. The findings show that the three films convey cultural differences in various ways. Parasite presents Korean class inequality through housing, social hierarchy, and family survival. In the Mood for Love presents Hong Kong’s social restraint through silence, wardrobe, shared living spaces, and repeated visual patterns. The Intouchables presents French class differences, disability, race and friendship through humor, direct communication, and contrasting social environments. Overall, this research suggests that cinema can potentially facilitate intercultural understanding by presenting cultural differences through emotionally and visually accessible forms rather than presenting them as the same.
Keywords
Keywords: Intercultural Understanding; Cultural Difference; Film Analysis; Visual Storytelling; Audience Empathy; Cross-Cultural Cinema
Introduction
Films present culture through setting, behavior, language, sound, wardrobe, and visual style, not only through plot. This study compares Parasite, In the Mood for Love, and The Intouchables as three ways of making cultural difference visible.
Conclusion
Each film builds cultural difference differently: class and housing in Parasite, restraint and repetition in In the Mood for Love, and humor across class, disability, and race in The Intouchables. Cinema can support intercultural understanding without treating cultures as the same.
How to Cite
Lee, Junsoo. Cinema Across Cultures: Understanding Differences Through Film. Journal of Youth Impact. September 2026; 1(Issue 3). DOI: https://doi.org/10.66245/jyi.v1.i3.004