OnScreen Review: "Decision To Leave"
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
One of my favorite theater experiences is when a movie leaves the theater with you and stays with you for the next several days. It barely leaves your mind, or you find your thoughts randomly coming back to it over and over several times. Often times that can be because of an ending that completely overwhelms or blows your mind. That was the exact experience I had with Decision To Leave, the latest film from South Korean director Park Chan-Wook.
It has been a while since I have seen a Park Chan-Wook film, and, frankly, I should’ve prepared myself better for it as they are not for the faint of heart. Chan-Wook’s film are adventures that will take you through an emotional wringer, often with some demented twists and turns. He is a fearless director who is not afraid to mess with and potentially alienate his audience. Decision To Leave actually tones down a lot of the extreme elements that Chan-Wook is known for and creates an incredibly accessible mystery full of intrigue and romantic longing.
A Busan detective, Hae-Jun (Park Hae-il) investigates a murder on a mountain and falls for the widow and potential suspect, Seo-Rae (Tang Wei), who gives a mesmerizing femme fatale performance. Hae-Jun is a well-respected, by-the-book detective with an eye for detail. It is that eye for detail that is so focused on Seo-Rae that he cannot help but become entranced by her, despite his best efforts.
There are a lot of twists and turns to the story that are better left unspoiled, but it is a neo-noir detective story, replete with all of the requisite ingredients and conventions that you would expect if you’ve seen a noir film before. But even if you have seen a thousand movies with a similar plot, it is not about the familiarity of the bones of the story but how the director puts the story together. And Park Chan-Wook makes this film sing with Hitchcockian gusto.
Hae-Jun is an insomniac, and often takes on stakeout duties because of this. The film shows us how his detective mind works, as he surveils Seo-Rae from afar as she goes about her job as an elderly caretaker or at night in her apartment, he pictures himself in the room too. As their relationship deepens, and she discovers that he is watching her, there is an instance where this flips, and she follows him from the police station as he is in pursuit of a criminal in another case he is working. She also comes to believe that his insomnia is because he is haunted by the things he has seen as a detective, and evidence backs this up by the fact that he leaves unsolved crime photos hanging on a wall in his apartment.
The trick for the film is making the audience wonder whether Seo-Rae is actually a killer or not. She is a woman with a past and it seems as though death follows her wherever she goes. Even a straight-laced detective like Hae-Jun gets his judgment clouded by her beauty. Tang Wei’s performance is outstanding in this femme fatale role, keeping the audience and Hae-Jun guessing as to her motives and whether she is genuinely interested in Hae-Jun or if she is stringing him along and he will eventually become another murder victim.
How the film incorporates technology is effective too. Cellphones have been something of a narrative killer in films in that they make help and aid so accessible, or a script has to go out of its way to eliminate it as a resource (no service, battery is dead, phone is smashed, etc.). This film uses the phones for translation app, GPS tracking, and a plot device. Seo-Rae’s actually an immigrant from China, so she is not always confident in her Korean. This leads to a few scenes where she and Hae-Jun speak from the heart to one another in their respective native tongues, which adds to the romantic longing. And GPS plays a vital role in the haunting ending of the film.
Decision To Leave is a beautifully layered film that keeps you on your toes and invests you in the burgeoning relationship between two people who seem fated never to be together. It’s also a lusciously crafted film with great visuals and two leads with great chemistry together. It is deeply evocative and a sure Oscar contender, and maybe not just in the Foreign Language category; the kind of movie that makes your heart ache in a way that good movies can.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars