Decision To Leave
From the director of one of the most blatantly erotic mystery thrillers of the last ten years comes Decision To Leave, a film of similar puzzles and transcendent romance that keeps its sensuality strictly above the sheets. Park Chan-wook’s new film (which he co-wrote with frequent collaborator Jeong Seo-kyeong) is equal parts perplexing and affecting, a doomed love story traversing mountains, the sea and many steep concrete steps as a detective seeks to solve that which cannot be.
Insomniac Detective Jang Hae-jun (Park Hae-il) lives in Busan and spends his days (and nights) doing what he loves best - picking at threads in the hope of unravelling the mysteries that cover his wall full of crime scene photos. He has a wife, you know, but she lives in the quieter city of Ipo and for 16 years, they have carried out a ‘weekend marriage’. Healthy. But this doesn’t seem to worry Hae-jun too much; if a certain Looking Glass song was from his perspective, his life, his love and his lady would be the job.
One particularly stimulating morning sees Hae-jun called to the scene of a fall. A mountaineer named Ki Do Soo has taken a steep tumble and ended up crumpled at the bottom of the peak, his inscribed belongings still in his bag at the top and his Rolex forever frozen on his time of death. Ki Do Soo was an accomplished climber and the question arises: was it an accident, or was he pushed? Suspicions fall on his beautiful (and much younger) Chinese wife Song Seo-rae (a mesmerising Tang Wei); everyone grieves in their own way but Seo-rae’s way seems to be nonexistent, and she has a scratch on her hand and an odd tattoo on her hip that echoes the possessive inscription on the victim’s belongings. Hae-jun is gifted the kind of mystery he could only dream of and so begins a tragically blurred relationship that would bring Billy Shakespeare to a long, drawn out orgasm.
As Hae-jun conducts surveillance on Seo-rae, his looking fosters something deeper than an attraction. Watching his subject smoke indoors and eat ice-cream for dinner, he becomes fascinated by the enigma of a woman he struggles to understand (not least because her Korean is, as she describes it, “insufficient”). Unbeknownst to him, Seo-rae is fully aware that she’s being watched, teasing her observer with seemingly threatening confessions to her cat when he’s listening in and designed behaviours sure to be taken a certain way from the outside. Homages to Hitchcock and early noirs like Double Indemnity are evident but there’s a certain sombre beauty in the way that Hae-jun tries to paint his subject and can’t get it quite right, like the dynamic that blossoms in Celine Sciamma’s tale of love born from looking. This is a film that understands exactly what it’s doing and how best to do it, leading its audience with little familiar crumbs towards the unknown.
What Park Chan-wook has accomplished with Decision To Leave is nothing short of exquisite and, though it may not be quite as brilliant as the afore-alluded-to The Handmaiden, it’s the kind of film that will likely be rewatched, studied and pondered for years to come. For a director known for his bloodlust and brutality, this may as well be his Age Of Innocence - a beautifully subdued telling of a relationship that never was, with more emotional heft than one whose consummation is displayed onscreen. His dedication to showing, not telling is evident in every frame (for a slightly spoilery example, Spikima’s breakdown of a scene is a great analysis) and the result is a film rich with visual symbolism.
From Seo-rae’s thematically significant wallpaper to the designs of the central characters’ living spaces (notably Seo-rae’s gorgeously adorned apartment), production designer Ryu Seong-hie’s mastery of her craft is abundantly clear. Having worked on Memories Of Murder and Oldboy early in her career, she has a knack for absorbing the intentions of her directors and refracting them in her stylistic choices, offering clues about the characters’ fates to those that pay attention.
“I think production designers have to have so much inspiration, film work is often less than logical, but I always try to be the person who helps to finish the map, as it were.” - Ryu Seong-hie speaking to View of the Arts, December 2014
In the above group interview, she speaks of her particular interest in the visual intertwining of reality and fantasy, a theme that’s very prevalent in the film. As the relationship evolves and Hae-jun’s perspective changes throughout, his objectivity becomes more clouded. Reminders of this are explored in his incessant use of eye drops and his binoculars obscuring everything but that which is in focus (Seo-rae). Cinematographer Kim Ji-yong runs with every odd request from his director (and throws in some of his own), pushing the envelope of where you can put a camera and giving new meaning to the ‘fisheye’ lens. It’s clear that everyone involved with the production of Decision To Leave is deeply committed to the project, further confirmed by the pitch perfect central performances.
Park Hae-il may be best known as the main suspect in Memories Of Murder, delivering a chilling performance and cementing his face in the minds of many as one not to be trusted. In this film, he sheds that mask. His earnest detective is someone with whom the audience empathises, a closed man whose hard exterior is broken down, leaving his heart vulnerable to shattering. It’s a heartbreaking performance of a person who, so close to healing, discovers the true meaning of the phrase “be careful what you wish for.”
His tango partner is equally astounding as Tang Wei elevates her role from formidable femme fatale to icon of romantic despair. Seducing both the detective archetype and the audience with her enigmatic personality and striking beauty, Seo-rae does not seem to belong anywhere until she finally does. A scene that epitomises her mystery involves a rock ledge overlooking the ocean, a blue dress (or is it green?) and a gesture captured on a phone that reads more like a painting than a clue. We might stare at it for hours and be no closer to understanding her actions but by the film’s devastating end, it all makes sense.
It takes a while (and several distinct narrative acts) to come to this conclusion but Decision To Leave wastes none of its 140-minute runtime, expertly putting the pieces in place for its final shot to offer maximum impact. It’s difficult to mention the film ending it evokes most without spoiling, so I’ll cryptically point to golden eggs and hope that enough time has passed for folk to have forgotten.
Decision To Leave is playing at Camelot Outdoor from January 12.
