One way to size up this singular film is to enumerate all that it lacks. You really think the case is closed? Open wide. The quest grows more urgent in the movie’s second half, as Hae-joon, “completely shattered,” gives up the job in Busan and goes home. All the while, of course, he is supposed to be establishing whether or not she pushed her husband off that rock. The imagery answers to Hae-joon’s desire, granting him a proximity to Seo-rae that life, even the life of a prying detective, cannot supply.
Thus, as Hae-joon, sitting in his car with binoculars, observes Seo-rae at work-she is a caregiver, who believes that “living old people come before dead husbands”-he magically appears in the room beside her, like Kirk beaming up next to Mr.
The whole thing is engineered, we realize, to tell a tale of obsessive love. Gadgetry is everywhere in the new film (how lonely Hae-joon looks, dictating his thoughts into the phone on his wrist), yet it’s only one cog in the ticking machinery of Park’s plot. He is standing in front of her, adrift in the blizzard of words. At one point, on a snowy night, Seo-rae speaks Chinese into her phone, which, in turn, thanks to the dangerous miracle of Google Translate, talks in Korean to Hae-joon. “I worry when he does not come back from a mountain, thinking he might die at last.” At last? Is she relieved ? To be fair, we shouldn’t read too much into her phrasing, because, as she says, “I’m Chinese, my Korean is insufficient.” Like Park’s previous film, “The Handmaiden” (2016), “Decision to Leave” is rich in linguistic slippage. The widow of the fallen man, who was an experienced climber, is Seo-rae (Tang Wei), and she is far from prostrate with grief. Something about this case is starting to crawl.
#Dark city sleep now cracked
From a distance, we spot two tiny figures being hauled to the top of the rock, on an electric pulley in closeup, we see the cracked face of a Rolex, its hands now motionless, and ants slaving over an eyeball. One day, Hae-joon is called to inspect a dead body, at the foot of a towering rock, and we are treated to a demonstration of the visual wit-frequently grand, yet etched with a cunning forensic precision-in which Park and his director of photography, Kim Ji-yong, like to deal. Hae-joon is bright, polite, punctilious, fit (outpacing his young deputy during a chase on foot), skilled at cooking, and, you might think, difficult to fool. On weekends, he goes home to his wife, Jeong-Ahn (Lee Jung-hyun), who works at a nuclear power plant in another town. The begloved cop is Hae-joon (Park Hae-il), who, during the week, lives in the Korean city of Busan. Do you wear a patch? Or chew anti-homicidal gum? Only the first time is hard.” Sensible advice, though I need to know how easy it is to quit killing. Also, as one of the characters says, “Killing is like smoking. Other tips: when interviewing a suspect at a police station, order in two boxes of premium sushi to feed the friendly mood. A nice move, and just one of the practical lessons to be drawn from “Decision to Leave,” the latest film from Park Chan-wook.
#Dark city sleep now free
Pulling on the glove, you grab-without fear of injury-the blade that your enemy thrusts at you, make a fist of your free hand, and punch his lights out. You have no weapon, so what to do? You reach into your pocket and pluck out a glove, made of fine chain mail, as was once used to cowl the heads and necks of medieval knights. You’re a cop, on a rooftop, facing a guy with a knife.
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