Movie Review: "Memories of Murder"
So after friday night's viewing of the 1965 adaptation of Agatha Christie's murder mystery, "Ten Little Indians", I moved on to another movie about multiple murders, this one coming from South Korea. Writer/director Bong Joon-Ho, recently made famous in the States last year for his monster movie "The Host", adapts his screenplay, "Memories of Murder", from a stage play based on the real-life story of South Korea's first serial killer. Its a strong and engaging detective film that pulls you into the world of rural South Korea circa 1986, but it can often leave you as frustrated as the detectives working the case.
The film opens with a gorgeously lit close-up shot of a young boy in the fields studying an insect on a leaf. He picks it up inquisitively, uncaring toward the pain he might be causing it (perhaps a parallel to how the killer treats his victims). From there we follow a tractor as it takes our main protagonist, Detective Park Doo-Man, to the discovery of the first victim. Here we see just how ineffective and unprepared the rural investigative teams are, having had no experience with a case this gruesome. Reporters show up before the CSI and forensics teams do, and key clues- such as the imprint of one of the killer's sneakers- are erased by unobservant farmers. The crime scenes are tainted, and yet this does not deter Detective Park, a man who believes entirely in his own ability to tell who is innocent and who is guilty just by looking them in the eye.
Det. Park goes through the motions, interviewing men that knew the girl, lining up potential subjects, but holding on to the belief that he will soon solve the case. A second body is found, and with it comes a detective from the big city of Seoul, and its clear from the beginning that he and Park will butt heads- literally, as Det. Park mistakes the new Detective Seo for a rapist and attacks him, the first of Det. Park's many misjudgments of character. Park and his short-tempered partner, Detective Cho, begin to suspect the local mentally retarded boy, who was seen following the first victim around, as the killer.
Its here that we see the failures of the local police and the mistrust the public had for them- something that perhaps mirrors what all of South Korea felt at the time, as they were still under military rule at the time and would soon experience the scandal of having a student tortured to death by the government (none of this is mentioned in the film, I had to research it myself, but would be known to all Korean viewers). Short-tempered Cho, with an OK from Park, begins to beat the young man for information, and Park coaches the boy into a taped confession, which the boy does not even realize is happening.
The Seoul detective, Seo, sits back in amusement as he investigates the case on his own. After prematurely announcing they've caught the killer and posing for pictures with the press, they realize their suspect is not the killer and release him to much embarrassment. There's a shakeup within the force, and a new police chief is assigned to the case with Park, Seo, and Cho still searching for clues.
Despite their initial ineptitude, Park and Cho demonstrate they do have good detective qualities, with Park determining that since they've not found any pubic hairs at any of the murder sites (now up to 3), the killer must be hairless or shave. Seo realizes that all the murders have taken place on rainy nights. A female officer who lurks in the background for most of the film makes the connection between times of the murder and a requested song that plays on the radio station on those nights.
With these clues, they attempt to prevent the next murder from happening, but are unable due to lack of manpower. It seems the detectives are as powerless as the Korean people, and this idea is reinforced later when the detectives are shown pushing their broken down police car to jump-start it, or when they realize there is no technology in Korea to match DNA samples and that they must send their evidence to America.
My favorite sequence involves Park and Cho returning to the site of one of the murders to look for clues. They hear someone approaching and, thinking its the killer returning to the scene of the crime, hide. It turns out to be Det. Seo with a radio that plays the song the murderer requests each night he kills. At first it seems to be a red herring- is Det. Seo the killer? But soon someone *else* arrives, forcing Seo to hide behind a hill on the other side of the murder site, unaware that Park and Cho are hiding close by. This new potential suspect does some strange and unmentionable things at this site, and once aware that he's being watched, takes off. Park and Cho explode from their hiding place on one side, Seo on the other, and with confused looks to each other, the trio takes off on a choreographed chase after the suspect.
I'm trying to avoid turning this into a mere summary of the film, but this sequence allows Park and Cho to shine in front of the big city Detective Seo. Once again, Park is *sure* of the man's guilt (by looking in his eyes, remember), and he and Cho again torture and force a confession from the suspect. This is important because it becomes a common theme for the film: Park's overconfidence in himself to find the killer based on instinct, and the regrettable (and seemingly ordinary and usual) use of physical violence on suspects in order to get confessions and close cases.
Eventually, the search for the killer takes its toll on the three men. Seo looks more thin and haggard as the film progresses, and his temper reaches its breaking point. Cho can no longer contain himself (or follow the Chief's orders to stop beating up suspects) and his violent outbursts cost him his job, his health, and a valuable witness (the mentally retarded boy from earlier). Park begins to doubt himself and his "ability".
Without knowing too much of South Korea's history, I get the idea that perhaps director Bong was suggesting this was the government's fault; the detectives could never solve the case because the country's problems came from the top down. The horrible crimes and the failure of the police were indicative of the country (at the time) as a whole.
The film ends with Detective Park in the year 2003, now a businessman with children (and still using his "look me in the eyes" technique to tell if people are guilty), once again visiting the site of the first murder. A child approaches and asks what he's doing. She then tells him another man came there a little bit before, saying he once did something there and he wanted to remember. Park, out of the investigative game for an unknown time, can't help but ask what the man looked like.
"Ordinary," she says. Nothing special. And with that, Park, in a close-up, swivels his head from the side and looks straight into the camera, at us, with tears in his eyes, a shot that almost mirrors that opening close-up of the young boy; two characters without a clue.
And then the credits roll. One of my biggest criticisms of the film is how it fails to tell you what year it is (except for the opening "1986" and the epilogue's "2003". Researching the film and the true events, I discovered that there were ten murders between 1986 and 1991. I would have liked some text at the end explaining that the case remains open (though the statue of limitations is rapidly approaching), or some title cards spread throughout the film to give us a sense of how much time has passed. Watching the movie, I thought all that we had seen took place over a one year period. And maybe it did. Or maybe it was spread out over a couple of years- I have no idea, nothing ever gave us a clear indication of the passage of time.
"Memories of Murder" reminded me very much of David Fincher's "Zodiac", another film based on true events that showcased the search for a serial killer and all the red herrings and false suspects and failures that came with it. Both films showed how the obsession with finding the killer took its toll on those involved, though in the case of "Memories", we are given glimpses into the private life of only Detective Park. We don't know how the case screwed up the Chief's marriage (if it did), or what happened to Detective Seo (did he give up? Go crazy? Move back to Seoul?), though conclusions can be made about Detective Cho's fate, based on his final scenes in the film.
So, "Memories of Murder" was a very engaging film, and its got me interested into the real story and the history of South Korea at the time. Director Bong Joon-Ho is two for two with me right now (I enjoyed "The Host" quite a bit), and I very much look forward to his collaboration with "Oldboy" director Park Chan-Wook on "Snow Train".
Next up we'll continue the Asian foreign film theme with either the Hong Kong crime-drama "Infernal Affairs", which was remade as Scorsese's "The Departed", or the Japanese horror anthology "Kwaidan".
--Cbake
The film opens with a gorgeously lit close-up shot of a young boy in the fields studying an insect on a leaf. He picks it up inquisitively, uncaring toward the pain he might be causing it (perhaps a parallel to how the killer treats his victims). From there we follow a tractor as it takes our main protagonist, Detective Park Doo-Man, to the discovery of the first victim. Here we see just how ineffective and unprepared the rural investigative teams are, having had no experience with a case this gruesome. Reporters show up before the CSI and forensics teams do, and key clues- such as the imprint of one of the killer's sneakers- are erased by unobservant farmers. The crime scenes are tainted, and yet this does not deter Detective Park, a man who believes entirely in his own ability to tell who is innocent and who is guilty just by looking them in the eye.
Det. Park goes through the motions, interviewing men that knew the girl, lining up potential subjects, but holding on to the belief that he will soon solve the case. A second body is found, and with it comes a detective from the big city of Seoul, and its clear from the beginning that he and Park will butt heads- literally, as Det. Park mistakes the new Detective Seo for a rapist and attacks him, the first of Det. Park's many misjudgments of character. Park and his short-tempered partner, Detective Cho, begin to suspect the local mentally retarded boy, who was seen following the first victim around, as the killer.
Its here that we see the failures of the local police and the mistrust the public had for them- something that perhaps mirrors what all of South Korea felt at the time, as they were still under military rule at the time and would soon experience the scandal of having a student tortured to death by the government (none of this is mentioned in the film, I had to research it myself, but would be known to all Korean viewers). Short-tempered Cho, with an OK from Park, begins to beat the young man for information, and Park coaches the boy into a taped confession, which the boy does not even realize is happening.
The Seoul detective, Seo, sits back in amusement as he investigates the case on his own. After prematurely announcing they've caught the killer and posing for pictures with the press, they realize their suspect is not the killer and release him to much embarrassment. There's a shakeup within the force, and a new police chief is assigned to the case with Park, Seo, and Cho still searching for clues.
Despite their initial ineptitude, Park and Cho demonstrate they do have good detective qualities, with Park determining that since they've not found any pubic hairs at any of the murder sites (now up to 3), the killer must be hairless or shave. Seo realizes that all the murders have taken place on rainy nights. A female officer who lurks in the background for most of the film makes the connection between times of the murder and a requested song that plays on the radio station on those nights.
With these clues, they attempt to prevent the next murder from happening, but are unable due to lack of manpower. It seems the detectives are as powerless as the Korean people, and this idea is reinforced later when the detectives are shown pushing their broken down police car to jump-start it, or when they realize there is no technology in Korea to match DNA samples and that they must send their evidence to America.
My favorite sequence involves Park and Cho returning to the site of one of the murders to look for clues. They hear someone approaching and, thinking its the killer returning to the scene of the crime, hide. It turns out to be Det. Seo with a radio that plays the song the murderer requests each night he kills. At first it seems to be a red herring- is Det. Seo the killer? But soon someone *else* arrives, forcing Seo to hide behind a hill on the other side of the murder site, unaware that Park and Cho are hiding close by. This new potential suspect does some strange and unmentionable things at this site, and once aware that he's being watched, takes off. Park and Cho explode from their hiding place on one side, Seo on the other, and with confused looks to each other, the trio takes off on a choreographed chase after the suspect.
I'm trying to avoid turning this into a mere summary of the film, but this sequence allows Park and Cho to shine in front of the big city Detective Seo. Once again, Park is *sure* of the man's guilt (by looking in his eyes, remember), and he and Cho again torture and force a confession from the suspect. This is important because it becomes a common theme for the film: Park's overconfidence in himself to find the killer based on instinct, and the regrettable (and seemingly ordinary and usual) use of physical violence on suspects in order to get confessions and close cases.
Eventually, the search for the killer takes its toll on the three men. Seo looks more thin and haggard as the film progresses, and his temper reaches its breaking point. Cho can no longer contain himself (or follow the Chief's orders to stop beating up suspects) and his violent outbursts cost him his job, his health, and a valuable witness (the mentally retarded boy from earlier). Park begins to doubt himself and his "ability".
Without knowing too much of South Korea's history, I get the idea that perhaps director Bong was suggesting this was the government's fault; the detectives could never solve the case because the country's problems came from the top down. The horrible crimes and the failure of the police were indicative of the country (at the time) as a whole.
The film ends with Detective Park in the year 2003, now a businessman with children (and still using his "look me in the eyes" technique to tell if people are guilty), once again visiting the site of the first murder. A child approaches and asks what he's doing. She then tells him another man came there a little bit before, saying he once did something there and he wanted to remember. Park, out of the investigative game for an unknown time, can't help but ask what the man looked like.
"Ordinary," she says. Nothing special. And with that, Park, in a close-up, swivels his head from the side and looks straight into the camera, at us, with tears in his eyes, a shot that almost mirrors that opening close-up of the young boy; two characters without a clue.
And then the credits roll. One of my biggest criticisms of the film is how it fails to tell you what year it is (except for the opening "1986" and the epilogue's "2003". Researching the film and the true events, I discovered that there were ten murders between 1986 and 1991. I would have liked some text at the end explaining that the case remains open (though the statue of limitations is rapidly approaching), or some title cards spread throughout the film to give us a sense of how much time has passed. Watching the movie, I thought all that we had seen took place over a one year period. And maybe it did. Or maybe it was spread out over a couple of years- I have no idea, nothing ever gave us a clear indication of the passage of time.
"Memories of Murder" reminded me very much of David Fincher's "Zodiac", another film based on true events that showcased the search for a serial killer and all the red herrings and false suspects and failures that came with it. Both films showed how the obsession with finding the killer took its toll on those involved, though in the case of "Memories", we are given glimpses into the private life of only Detective Park. We don't know how the case screwed up the Chief's marriage (if it did), or what happened to Detective Seo (did he give up? Go crazy? Move back to Seoul?), though conclusions can be made about Detective Cho's fate, based on his final scenes in the film.
So, "Memories of Murder" was a very engaging film, and its got me interested into the real story and the history of South Korea at the time. Director Bong Joon-Ho is two for two with me right now (I enjoyed "The Host" quite a bit), and I very much look forward to his collaboration with "Oldboy" director Park Chan-Wook on "Snow Train".
Next up we'll continue the Asian foreign film theme with either the Hong Kong crime-drama "Infernal Affairs", which was remade as Scorsese's "The Departed", or the Japanese horror anthology "Kwaidan".
--Cbake
posted by Cbake at 10:43 PM
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