Post Oscars Edition: Before there was Parasite....

On February 9, 2020, mere weeks before essentially the whole world went into lockdown mode with Covid-19, South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-Ho made all sorts of history when he was awarded the Best Picture Oscar for his genre-bending Parasite which won over an international audience.

Even before he went up to receive a sort-of-surprise dark-horse Oscar for Best Director and Best Film, movie critics were noting that perhaps an even more important movie Bong directed was a much earlier and considerably lesser known mystery suspense Memories of Murder.

Coming to his earlier effort Memories of Murder (2003) after having seen his more successful Sci-Fi social critique The Host (2007), the Chris Evans-headed English language movie Snowpiercer (2013), and the Oscar-winning Parasite (2019), we weren’t quite sure what to expect. And, honestly, I’m not convinced that there aren’t some after-the-fact revisionist history with some of the superlatives laced for the movie in the trailer above. After all, Memories of Murder can now be labeled as “From Academy Award Winner Bong Joon Ho.”

That said, the film is quite thought-provoking, and I wanted to share some ideas that have been revolving around in my head.

Looking Backward from the “Present”

Memories of Murder is mostly set in the late 1980s, but then the very ending of the movie brings us to the film’s “present” moment in the early 2000s. Thus we start with and spend what seems an eternity in the 1980s rural setting. In this earlier time period, we see brutal crackdown of political protests, way too many country bumpkin detectives fumbling with low/no tech instruments, flagrant violations of suspects’ rights, all in dark and dreary and impoverished surroundings. It’s with a positive sense of physical—and visual—relief that we welcome the 21st century vantage point where the world appears light and bright and modern(-ish).

One of the frustrating “backwardnesses” that exasperate viewers is the fact that the detectives investigating the deaths of multiple young women with similar modus operandi do not appear to comprehend that they are dealing with a “serial killer.” While today’s audiences are fed on a steady diet of Criminal Minds-like explorations of real and fictional serial killers, the film’s detectives grapple—excruciatingly slowly—with the idea that it might be a single individual who commits a series of murders.

But then we need to remember history.

While England’s “Jack the Ripper” might be considered the “first modern day serial killer,” it’s not really until the 1970s when the United States encountered a steady stream the likes of John Wayne Gacy and other notorious serial killers. And, indeed, Memories of Murder takes its subject matter from possibly “South Korea’s first serial murders” from 1986 on. That’s why, when asked by the rural detective, “Do you see this kind of thing in Seoul often?” even the city cop replies, “Never.”

Perhaps a stand-in for a more urban and enlightened viewer, the detective from Seoul—bright lights, big city!—initially finds befuddling the casual corruption and rank idiocy of his rural counterparts as they bumble through the case, committing what they feel to be (righteous) violence and (justified) torture against those they believe to be perpetrators of these crimes. However, as the Seoul detective becomes more involved with the case and befriends some locals, we witness the Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now degeneration of a civilized detective in the face of the monstrous.

The Detective’s Gaze/The Murderer’s Gaze

The trailer for Memories of Murder begins with the camera trained on the eyes of the rural detective on the case, who tells us, “I may know nothing else, but my eyes can read people.” What we don’t know if we’re seeing the trailer first is that this scene comes right at the close of the movie, with the killer still uncaught, either in the film or in “true” history.* As IndieWire’s David Ehrlich writes, “The film ends with a fade out as Park breaks the fourth wall and stares into the lens as if looking for the culprit in the audience on the other side of the screen.”

While critics and viewers have commented on this final haunting moment of meeting the detective’s gaze, I responded perhaps more viscerally to having to share the murderer’s gaze. Towards the end of the movie, the camera follows the movement of the girlfriend of the lead rural detective. But then walking in the opposite direction is a young school girl who had been befriended by the detective from Seoul. We realize then that we are looking at the two women as the killer would, unwillingly sharing his perspective as he decides which of these two would be his next victim. Which one will the camera choose to follow?

Yep, it’s haunting

Frankly, if I’m choosing a mystery to watch on a quiet Friday night at home, I might be leaning more towards the Poirot movies I most recently wrote about. Much more relaxing and comfortable, familiar, and, yes, even “cozy.”

On the other hand, while I myself have no desire to dive right back into Memories of Murder again so soon, if you haven’t seen it yet and your tastes run a bit darker, grittier, realistic, artsy….

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*According to Wikipedia, the real killer that the film was based on wasn’t identified until September of 2019!