Memories of Murder by Bong Joon-ho (2003)

In Korea on May 3, 2011 at 10:14 am

This film is based on on actual events that took place in Korea between the year 1986 and 1991. Daniel Kazman reviewed that this film was “has the setup of any number of average police procedurals: a gruesome rape/murder serial crime in a quiet backwater town, and a two cops at odds with each other’s methods, one cerebral and brooding and from the big city, the other physical, driven by intuition and from the local village where the bodies are found. But somehow this film is different”.

I personally love suspense movies, and in my opinion this film is chock-full of it. As reviewed by Sebastian Haff, in this film, “the serial killer takes second-stage to the detectives and their many struggles; including a lack of proper training, incompetence, and infighting. Director Joon-ho Bong continually changes the films tone throughout by masterfully intertwining offbeat, dark comedy with the grisly murders”. For me, the comedic portions in the first hour or so, the audience gets very absorbed into the film, but the grittiness, anxiety and frustration builds up as they fail once and again to catch the real killer towards the end of the film. As mentioned by Sebastian, the “infusions of comedy prevent the film’s already gloomy story from becoming too grim and dreadful”.

This film was also reviewed to have connections with the movie Se7en, as mentioned by Marcello – “Despite having only a few surface similarities, Memories of Murder has often been compared favorably to David Fincher’s Se7en, and I can understand why. This must happen in plenty of real-life investigations — the bogus clues outnumber the real ones, connections turn out to be coincidences, etc.”

I loved the opening and the ending of the film, with shots of the lush fields, and Empire Magazine even commented on film maker Bong’s “atmospheric use of the sombre landscape with its diverse ditches, alleys and tunnels and the pouring rain that accompanies the crimes, as well as the outbursts of intimidatory violence designed to scare the suspects into confessing” that “making its ambiguous ending all the more courageous and curiously satisfying.”

One of the heart wrenching moments for me was when the DNA results turned out to be inconclusive, where a reverse shot pans to reveal the tear-brimmed eyes of Detective Seo Tae-Yoon, and cuts back to the official statement on the letter.