[영화/런던] Review: Decision to Leave - Park Chan-Wook / MilkTeaFilms, MubiUK

 

헤어질 결심

산 정상에서 추락한 한 남자의 변사 사건. 담당 형사 `해준`(박해일)은 사망자의 아내 `서래`(탕웨이)와 마주하게 된다. “산에 가서 안 오면 걱정했어요, 마침내 죽을까 봐.” 남편의 죽음 앞에서 특별한 동요를 보이지 않는 `서래`. 경찰은 보통의 유가족과는 다른 `서래`를 용의선상에 올린다. `해준`은 사건 당일의 알리바이 탐문과 신문,잠복수사를 통해 `서래`를 알아가면서그녀에 대한 관심이 점점 커져가는 것을 느낀다.한편, 좀처럼 속을 짐작하기 어려운 `서래`는상대가 자신을 의심한다는 것을 알면서도조금의 망설임도 없이 `해준`을 대하는데….진심을 숨기는 용의자용의자에게 의심과 관심을 동시에 느끼는 형사그들의 <헤어질 결심>

 

평점

7.9 (2022.06.29 개봉)

감독

박찬욱

출연

박해일, 탕웨이, 이정현, 고경표, 김신영, 정영숙, 유승목, 서현우, 정이서, 이학주, 박용우, 박정민, 유태오, 정소리, 황재원, 신안진, 김도연, 고민시, 차서원, 주인영, 손관호, 정혁, 윤성원, 최선자, 진용욱, 안진상, 정하담, 최대훈, 김미화, 곽은진, 안성봉, 김성곤, 문순주, 현직, 한서울, 김도담, 문정대, 유인혜, 권혁, 유덕보, 이재하

- Korean, Chinese, Eng Sub

- Personal Review: ★★★★☆

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Romance with dignity

 

Before the official screening in the cinema, I went to the previews of Decision to Leave at Vue Piccadilly supported by Milktea Films and Mubi UK.

I've heard a lot about this film since it was released in South Korea this summer.

All my friends absolutely loved it, some went to the cinema multiple times and bought the script book.

I've been saying 'Oh, I want to watch Decision to Leave' around that time as well.

The director's name, Park Chan-Wook is more than enough to explain this film in Korea, but here in London, 'Win Best Director Award at Cannes' backed my expectation.

 

And At last,

I watched it and I fell in love with it so much.

 

In the commentary, the director talks about the complexity of emotions, and feelings - any human being, any grown-up would understand.

Hae-Joon and Seo-Rae's story shows the ambiguity, entanglement of one's state, and guides us to thickly-layered aspects of love.

This is not an ordinary story, but maybe it is an ordinary romance.

 

 

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Layers around love, and life.

 

Decision to leave is utterly multifaceted. 

Even its genre, a romance but also a thriller, presents this multi-layered aspect of the film.

The entire story is about love, and not about love at all, Like any of our life stories can finish only with love itself. 

 

Seo Rae is a victim of history and a sufferer of violence. At the same time, she is a suspect in murder and a murderer. 

Blue, or green, or blue-green colour of Seo Rae.

 

Hae Joon is a detective chasing criminals, who is falling in love with a murder suspect. He is also the reason triggering Im-Hosin's murder case.

"You need murder and violence to be happy." His wife said. 

 

Even Ki-Dosu, Seo Rae's (first) dead husband, can be understood in two dimensions; A possessive domestic violence offender and the saviour listening to Seo Rae's story for the first time.

San-O, who seems like an inhuman criminal, swallow the risk to be in his least favourite situation for his lover.

The reason why he hates to go to jail more than death -literally- is because he's suffered from violence in a juvenile detention centre. 

 

It is a mixture of ironical facets.

Turbulence in Life. The complexity of humans.

It aggravates the understanding of a figure with one part of their story. 

Just,

Some of the turbulence inflate, some flatten into the void.

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In the film, like other works of the Park Chan-Wook, the camera shows mirrors and reflections.

The other sides of the characters are constantly highlighted on reflected surfaces. 

The camera is often crooked. The angle is either too high or too low.

So, we see the unfamiliar corner of mundane spaces.

The fog keeps blurring the boundary.

Hae Joon continuously puts eye drops blurring or clearing his vision.

The edge between the mountain and the sea gets thinner.

Sea fog is too dense, the air flowing through the wind is visible.

Maybe that's why 'fog' is a key factor in Decision to Leave. 

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Language is one of the most interesting elements in this film.

Seo Rae is a Chinese murder suspect living in S.Korea and Hae Joon is a pure Korean.

There are multiple layers and barriers in their communication. 

Seo Rae's words travel through her smartphone and are spoken with a translator's somewhat-awkward robotic voice.

One word is dissected into many other words. 

At Last.

Solely.

Heart and Head.

and in the borrowed words from scripted sentences of TV series.

Seo Rae and Hae Joon, and we, do not know how much each other understands what they said. 

We all just assume we did, they did understand. 

Just like I here writing in English and wonder, how much exact meaning is being delivered with the English words: At last, Soley, Heart and Head thing as a Korean Native.

'At last' doesn't carry the feeling of 마침내. 'Solely' feel like 오로지 neither.

I am constantly curious about how English natives feel about these words.

Are you guys getting the meaning as I do?

 

But, even though we speak the same language, how much of the true meaning reach others?

Are you, Korean viewers, getting the meaning as I do?

 

Hae Joon doesn't type and retype his text again and again because Seo Rae's Korean is not good enough.

He is just trying to be delicate.

Something is lost between words and words.

And sometimes, the blanks tell more.

Seo Rae said her Korean is insufficient, insufficiency fulfils more than a certain loss.

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Decision to Leave is a story about a woman and a man getting closer and separated. 

From the heart probably. 

But no one really said 'Love you' directly. 

The most we can get is when Hae Joon says "Aren't you curious why I like you?" or Seo Rae says "The moment you said you loved me, your love is over. The moment your love ends, my love begins" at the end of the film.

Their love lies in sushi, water-proof plasters, and fake Chinese fried rice.

It is also when Hae Joon says through away the phone into the deep sea, when Seo Rae comes to burn Hae Joon's criminal scene photos, when she gets hidden fentanyl, and when she jumps into the bloody pool.

At the moment, they sleep next to other, there is love. 

A certain entireness is in the love which never has been spoken out loud. The secure feeling is there which is once lost when someone argues that having sex even at the time they hate each other might guarantee something. 

 

Matching their breath.

Breath sounds like waves. 

The sound from those who aren't benevolent, so who love the water.

 

Hae Joon already got wet at the temple on a rainy day. 

Lion-head beach already became Seo Rae, or Seo Rae fulls up the boundary between sea and the land. 

Hae Joon's sneakers are fully soaked. He is drowning.

Like he is collapsing.

 

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Throughout the whole story, Hae Joon is floating in ambiguity. 

He tries to see clearly, he missed Seo Rae, missed San-O (physically and also the clues), missed tortoises, his wife and Seo Rae (again).

He looks into things, questions everything, but it often only scratches the surface or even cannot make any scratch.

As He doesn't look at his wife on the bed or as he askes Seo Rae why she moved to Ipo. 

He only looks at the 'silhouette'.

 

Decision to Leave uses the screen like a stage.

Often by Hae Joon, multiple events come to a space and time overlaps on one scene.

The direction and editing put a character in a different time and space or separate one time and space by turning lights in the background. 

It almost feels like everything in the story is a play. 

Can we actually say that this story is different from TV series Seo Rae uses to learn Korean phrases? 

Hae Joon and Seo Rae's 'their thing' continues without a closer.

Hea Joon didn't decide to love or to leave. His dignity is in his ambiguity.

Only Seo Rae reaches Ipo with her decision to leave. In upright position.

 

Go to the sea, go into the water. You are a jellyfish.

There are no eyes, no nose. No thoughts.

You are not happy or sad. No emotions.

Without closer.