MIFF Session #7: DECISION TO LEAVE

A sage detective and his goofy underling investigate the death of a wealthy local who either fell or was pushed from a steep climb. When it's called murder the departed's wife becomes a suspect. The stunningly beautiful but not entirely legal Busan resident recently from China at first seems to have been spun from pure virtue, sinned against, not sinning. But is she just a clever femme fatale? The detective is falling for her at a rate thirty-two feet per second per second and his intellectual cogs are getting gritty. Will this end well?

Master of the dark and violent, Park Chan-wook, brings us his his glossiest neo noir yet and shifts the focus on to the romance between two people, each of whom might be closing in on the other. This time the violence is pulled way back so this interplay can tighten. And it's a treat. I grew fond of the trope of bringing characters into the same set who were at two ends of a phone call or where one, observing from a distance, imagines himself in the room he's staking out to the extent where he lifts an ashtray to catch the ash from a cigarette of his surveillance object. Obsession and its by-product, imagined mutuality are thus told by a trope that allows both the severity of it and the supposed care. At other times, shots from future or past events slice into current action for a moment to herald the scene to come. And Park's feel for visual dazzle and strong scoring is still hearty. 

And then it ends, very neatly, and then goes on for another hour. The story does take an interesting turn but we are fed so much that we've already consumed that it soon feels listless and bloating. I've seen Park films that were long before but not one that didn't warrant the extra length or feel as long as it felt sturdy. They also felt cinematic. When Decision to Leave decides to replay itself for the encore of the third act it starts feeling more like an over literal novel adaptation. While he delivers a stunning finale it is at the end of a patience-trying hour of what feels like idling. This won't prevent me from seeking out future Park works but for now but hopefully he will strip it back and relish in the power and the vision that produced the Vengeance Trilogy or Thirst. Next time.