Mark Reviews Movies: DECISION TO LEAVE

Decision to Leave, MUBI

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 14, 2022

There's a joke of mistranslation about midway through the first story of Decision to Leave. A detective has been following and watching a dead man's wife, whom he suspects of murdering her husband—although his reasons are a bit more complicated or far simpler, depending on how one looks at it, than that. She's originally from China, now living in South Korea, and in Chinese, the widow speaks to a stray cat that she feeds and that has brought her a raven in exchange for her kindness. The detective records what she says and translates through his phone: If the cat really wants to give her a present, the translation reads, it would bring her the head of the kind detective who has been investigating her.

That's not really what she said, or at least, the widow and possible murder suspect explains as much to the detective. She asked the cat, not for his head, but for his heart. The cat probably doesn't need to help, because she might already have that.

Co-writer/director Park Chan-wook's film involves a bit of miscommunication—not only in terms of misunderstanding what people actually say, but also in comprehending or reading into what people really mean when they say what they say. This story begins as a murder mystery, but by the end, it has taken us through two separate but vaguely connected mysteries, while also examining the peculiar but deep connection that develops between Hae-jun (Park Hae-il), the detective, and Seo-rae (Tang Wei), the woman who might have murdered her husband.

The mystery of that relationship clearly appeals to Park and co-writer Jeong Seo-kyeong more than the particulars of its two-pronged plot. The film is better for that attention.

To be fair, the mysteries themselves are pretty engaging, too, especially in the ways in which each one plays off and serves as a reversal of the other. Hae-jun and his partner Soo-wan (Go Kyung-pyo) kind of fall into the investigation by chance. They're in the middle of a more significant manhunt for a pair of men suspected of multiple murders (How that search connects to the main story is slightly amusing, if only because Park and Jeong display their preference for the human elements of this tale over the procedural ones by resolving a chase sequence with a heart-to-heart about the thin line between love and obsession).

Instead, though, Hae-jun and Soo-wan are called to look into the death of an immigration official, who fell—or was pushed—to his death from a mountaintop. Seo-rae, the wife of the deceased man, certainly had motive, since the husband was abusive, but her calm demeanor and general air of compassion certainly don't seem to fit the murdering type. Besides, she has an alibi: Seo-rae was at work at the time, tending to one of the elderly women for whom she serves as a caregiver. No, she definitely doesn't seem capable of a cold-blooded killing.

Something nags at Hae-jun, who suffers from insomnia because he's haunted by the unsolved murders in his career, about the case. Something about Seo-rae pesters him, too—mainly that he's instantly smitten with the woman, keeps staking out her movements and behavior even after everyone assumes the husband's death was a suicide, and becomes even more distanced from his wife (played by Jung Yi-seo), with whom he shares a "weekend marriage" (He works and lives in Busan during the week, and the couple's shared home, where the wife lives full-time, is elsewhere).

As for how the investigation pans out, that should be left to be discovered. Park does provide some clever and stylistic touches, though, as Hae-jun, a man who is devoted to what he can see (He even uses eye drops before looking into any crime scene, just make certain his vision is a clear as can be) and what he can deduce from that evidence, imagines himself following a suspect's moves before and during a possible killing.

It's a neat trick of staging, but more importantly, the first time Park uses the gimmick has nothing to do with trying to determine the how, where, and what of a murder. It arrives as Hae-jun watches Seo-rae alone in her apartment, envisioning what it might be like to share in some private, intimate moment—away from the procedures of an investigation and closer to some understanding of what she's feeling beneath her collected, precise exterior.

Some of the detective's wish is fulfilled in the first half, but getting to know Seo-rae in something of a domestic setting becomes a gift, as she helps him with the bigger case and to sleep for once, and the other thing. There's an answer to the mystery that's simultaneously satisfyingly straightforward and hauntingly unresolved. Meanwhile, the second half of the film, which brings yet another case for the detective to solve, cuts right to the idea of dealing with the aftermath of the first case. That's not on a procedural level, though. It's personal—in words that are left unspoken but feelings that have been communicated quite clearly through choices of action and inaction.

That focus on the characters makes the second half of Decision to Leave a richer and more considered section than the first That's thanks in part to the performances, with the two leads showing considerable chemistry together, but it's mostly due to how Park pays off details and setups—both of plot and mainly of character—that come to define how the central relationship forms, adjusts, and is left as one lingering mystery.

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