A superior police procedural thriller,
Memories of Murder,
is another example of the maturity of the South Korean
film industry. On the surface,
Memories of Murder
is every bit as skillfully made as the best examples
of western psychothrillers. It deserves comparison to
Jonathan Demme's
The killer revealed?
but at the same time makes
a final judgment on the serial killer genre that sets
it apart from the genre
Lambs spawned which
is populated by urbane, evil geniuses and their earnest
sophisticated pursuers.
Based upon the first documented serial killing in
South Korea that occured in the mid-80s, Memories
is set in a rural town against the backdrop of the
military rule and war paranoia that gripped the country
at the time. Except for the occasional protest and
air raid drills, the town of Hwaseong carries on with
melancholy life that is suddenly interrupted by the
appearance of a killer in their midst.
The chief detective in charge of the case, Inspector
Park, is a country policeman who seems untroubled
by the discovery of the bodies of young women in fields
and woods, their arms bound and always found after
a rainy night. Park verges on cliche as the bumpkin-like
detective who can hardly secure a crime scene much
less deduce a pattern between the killings. Much of
the film's black humour is derived from Park and his
thuggish sidekick's matter of fact beatings of suspects
and planting of evidence in their bid to quickly solve
the crimes.
As the killings continue (never shown except in the
aftermath or at the very moment of the abduction),
a big city detective, Suh Tae-yun, shows up to lend
a scientific angle on the investigation. Immediately,
the methods of the two detectives conflict with Inspector
Suh's cold reasoning seemingly exposing Park's rough-housing
as base ineptitude. If the film was only this conflict,
Memories would have quickly become stale,
but director Bong Joon Ho delicately balances the
clowning of Park's part of the investigation with
his humanity. The sophisticated city detective, on
the other hand, we see is not entirely successful
with his theories as the movie carries on.
Whereas most in the serial killer genre have been
stuck in the macabre, Memories has quite
the light touch. Even given the spectacular nature
of the murders, the town seems to treat it more like
a distraction while the police are more chagrined
at the press criticism (tame by western standards)
than with the lack of success of the investigation.
Park is content to manufacture suspects out of a range
of unfortunates who he sweeps up regardless of actual
value. As in Wild Card which
I saw at the Vancouver International Film Festival
this year, police brutality seems casually accepted.
For his part, Inspector Suh begins edging the investigation
more into accepted procedure. After the first two
thirds of the film, it seems like Memories
will follow a predictable path wherein the country
police finally accept the methods of their city cousin.
However, it is then that Memories begins
to throw the audience for a loop.
Every detective thriller has a number of twists and
turns but Memories is more like a steady
spiral of red herrings and efficient misdirections.
It's only at the end that the audience realizes how
true the direction was. Already innured to cliched
heroism of the scientific detective, the audience
is eager for a resolution that would see the triumph
of procedure and intelligence over the depravity of
the unknown killer. The audience laps up the stream
of clues and patterns that start flying faster and
faster by the end. They are hooked just as the police
are hooked. The final denouement scene, which places
a judgement on all that has come before (and on other
serial killer genre films) is masterful.
