Decision to Leave review: Oldboy’s Park Chan-wook is obsessed with obsession

Back around 2006, if you asked a cinephile what Park Chan-wook’s deal was as a filmmaker, the answer would have been nice and simple: “He’s the Korean revenge-movie guy.” Park’s “vengeance trilogy” — the unrelated but simpatico dark thrillers Sympathy for Mr. Vance, OldboyAnd Lady Vengeance — crossed international borders during an era where it was rarer to see America fielding breakout hits from other countries than it is today. Incredible action scenes, twisty plotting and intense violence are just some of the many features that this film showcases. Oldboy’s famous “hammer and a hallway” fight helped put Park’s name on the map, but these three films (not his first, but at the time his most famous) also pigeonholed him as a director with very specific interests and tastes.

Since then, it has been difficult to pinpoint Park. Park’s 2009 horror film You are thirsty This is more than just a sad vampire romance story. It also has a lot of humor. Park’s English-language debut StokerThis is an unusual misfire, which pits Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode against one another in a lush drawing-room psychodrama that balances horror story with period piece. Park became a spy with Little Drummer GirlRomance-coms I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OKThe literary and historical crime fiction with The Handmaiden. The latest is the meticulously designed and crafted Decent to Leave, is both a police procedural and a love story, the kind of film that drifts lightly from one genre to another, and doesn’t fully land until the final devastating moments.

Photo by MUBI

Decent to Leave does clarify a specific agenda for Park’s highly divergent filmography: He’s a man obsessed with obsession. Park’s protagonists are prone to a compulsive obsession. They will chase their dreams relentlessly, regardless of the cost. They often lose everything. It is not. Oldboy, it’s a man obsessed with finding out who locked him up in a makeshift cell for 15 years, then dumped him on the street without explanation. You are not. You are thirsty, it’s a vampire bent on self-destruction. People become obsessed with one another in his love stories. This pulls them away from their past tracks and puts them on new paths. In addition, The decision to go. it’s a man obsessed with solving a murder, even if it destroys him and the woman he loves.

From the start, the film presents police detective Hae-jun (Park Hae-il, from Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder) as a man who doesn’t fully know how to exist outside of his job. On weekdays, he lives in the city and sees his wife every weekend for subdued sex and friendly time. But he seems to be lost at night when his insomnia sets in. Park Seo-kyeong, his co-writer, takes a long time to discover exactly what his thoughts are.

When Hae-jun is called out on what seems like an accidental-death case, he meets the dead man’s soft-spoken widow, Seo-rae (You can’t have too much of both passion and caution’s Tang Wei). He examines her carefully for signs that she could have planned a well-planned, clever murder. He becomes mildly obsessed with her at the same time. The two pursue a cautious, non-physical relationship — Park has said one of his major inspirations on the film was David Lean’s 1945 melodrama An Intimate MeetingThis is about two couples having an intimate affair which never reaches beyond kisses. In the process, though, Seo-rae begins to get under Hae-jun’s carefully crafted shell, exposing the obsessions he doesn’t reveal to anyone else.

Decent to LeaveWhile they may take many dramatic turns in the narrative, they do not feel like an unexpected surprise! Plot! Twists! These leave the audience gasping for air and eager to catch up. It’s a slow-burn movie, paced more like a Wong Kar-wai romance (Love in the Mood comes to mind often throughout this movie) than like Park’s early potboiler thrillers. At 138 minutes long, it’s paced for patient viewers who want to linger in the quiet spaces that grow between detective and suspect, and ponder each new bit of evidence in the murder case as it surfaces. It’s a particularly rich version of a whodunit, but it still follows the form, with one clue building on another as Hae-jun’s suspicions coalesce.

Photo credit to MUBI

Decent to LeavePark eventually takes the shockingly extreme route, but it first attracts a audience that can appreciate careful craft and graceful world-building. Early on, Hae-jun learns that Seo-rae is from China; when she meets new people, she apologizes for her “inadequate” Korean, though the subtitles never suggest she speaks clumsily. But when she’s positive she wants to be understood, she speaks into a translator app on her phone, and stares Hae-jun down as the device explains things to him in frank but poetic language. Seo-rae is devoted to caring for the elderly in her home, and Hae-jun ends up following her lead. That leads him to the classic Korean song “Mist,” which defines his relationship with Seo-rae. The movie returns over and over to the idea that Hae-jun has his clothes carefully tailored to add extra pockets, which are full of everything a person might need — something both his wife and Seo-rae casually take advantage of.

These small grace notes can feel distracting for the film until they are resurfaced enough times that they become clear character traits and ways of understanding these characters. They both hide a lot from the outside world, as well as their feelings towards each other. Park and Jeong make their leads come out through small details and both are sharp enough to interpret what they mean. The first impression is not good. Decent to LeaveThis may not sound like the sort of romance fans love. But as these small character angles gradually build toward a larger portrait, it becomes clear that it’s a different kind of fantasy altogether, about people who care enough — and can see clearly enough — to fully understand each other, even if they rarely verbalize that understanding.

That isn’t all that’s on Park’s mind with Decent to Leave, which ultimately lays out a second murder mystery that complicates the leads’ romance all over again, before crashing to a stunning ending. But while the procedural story takes up a fair bit of screen time, the emotional story is the center of the film, and the one that’s likely to stick with audiences longest and most clearly. The story lacks the dynamism and verve of his action films. As a portrait of obsession and regret, it’s remarkably sophisticated and satisfying. Park still cares about obsession, driving anger, and suppressed sadness — all the things that preoccupied him as a younger filmmaker. These interests are expressed differently by Park now. He uses soft conversation in memorable places instead of using the blunt end to a hammer.

Decent to Leave, South Korea’s 2022 submission for the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film category, opens in America in limited theatrical release on Oct. 14, with a wider rollout beginning Oct. 21.