Decision to Leave (2022)

An eerie relationship between a detective and his murder suspect

A dark romance between a detective and his murder suspect certainly captivates its audience. Me.

The story is about a detective helplessly falling in love with a murder suspect who was the main suspect of her husband's murder. As the movie takes us through the journey of the detective's romantic and emotional roller coaster, the woman was cleared of the murder simply because she had an alibi.

However, the detective discovered another piece of evidence that proved otherwise.

What did he do?

The story began from the moment he decided to deal with the evidence.

The last scene on the beach is cruelly heartbreaking.

Watch this movie.

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Masterpiece cast in silky noir.

The ultra-violence of the revenge trilogy feels distant when the Korean visionary Park Chan Wook serves delicious romance of the absolute highest class.

The irresistible scent of classic noir hangs like a dense fog over Park Chan Wook's latest opus. Decision to Leave (2022) undeniably has films like Double Indemnity (1944) and Vertigo (1958) to thank, but at the same time, Park Chan Wook is refreshingly unique in his filmmaking and voice as usual. It is not long before what is initially very "Hitchcockian" and familiar is taken in completely unexpected directions.

The story begins in an accident investigation led by the chronically melancholic police officer Jang Hae Joon (Park Hae Il). A middle-aged climber appears to have fallen from the mountain he was climbing and died instantly when he hit the ground. Most of Hae Joon's colleagues shrug their shoulders and want to shrug it off as quickly as possible, while he himself begins to turn the magnifying glass on the deceased's mysterious widow, Chinese Song Seo Rae (Tang Wei). Her cold nonchalance about what happened and her murky background means that Hae Joon is no longer so sure that her fate was an accident. The instant chemistry that develops between the two further complicates the case.

So far it feels like movies I've seen before but every minute of playtime me further away from them. What could steer towards a conventional investigative thriller instead becomes something far more dreamy and sublime. What generally results in something cold and hard instead turns into something warm and silky. With each passing scene, it becomes increasingly clear that the murder mystery and its "whodunit" question is completely subordinate to the central relationship and that it is a love story unfolding on the big screen, albeit a strange one. The corpses that keep turning up are just icing on a cake of passion and longing. Park Chan Wook's transformation into bloody romantic (something already noticed in 2016's The Handmaiden) is total, and I love it.

Given that's the direction Park Chan Wook chooses, it's Tang Wei and Park Hae Il that everything hinges on, because if you don't buy their almost Phantom Thread twisted romance, everything else falls like a house of cards. Fortunately, there are sparks about them from the first frame they share and it is with ease that one capitulates to their restrained "courtship" of each other. Hae Il's portrayal of someone stuck on autopilot in career and marriage only to gently thaw back to life is utterly devastating, and Tang Wei's multi-layered, vulnerable and utterly unique femme fatale interpretation will carry with me for a long time.

As always with Park Chan Wook's filmmaking, he maximizes the visual potential of every frame. Here he is more playful than in his previous works and allows everything from smartphones to GPSs to merge with the visual language and the result feels as hypermodern as it does classic. Aesthetically, he continues on the trail he opened with 2018's The Little Drummer Girl, allowing both set design and costuming to rise far beyond realism. There are strong reds, strong blues and strong greens, almost to the point that Pedro Almodóvar feels like a possible source of inspiration. Few filmmakers can pull off a visual feast of this breathtaking caliber.

When the incredible finale (incidentally the obvious peak of a film that conquers the epithet masterpiece in every scene) is over and the credits roll, I can't help but think of Michael Gambon's narration in the Coen brothers' Hail, Caesar! (2016) and how he describes a film- "A potion of balm for the ache of a toiling mankind". That's exactly what Decision to Leave is, a soft and healing balm for the heart, brain and soul.

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l'intrigue policière est le support d'une étude de la psychologie complexe des personnages !

Je viens de voir à mon tour "[b]decision to leave[/b]" (merci à l'invention du DVD ! ) et je l'ai beaucoup aimé ! Je n'ai rien vu d'autre de PARK Chan Wook même si j'ai toujours en projet sa trilogie sur la vengeance !
Dès les premières images j'ai été ensorcelée par la beauté de la lumière, de la photographie et des paysages choisis (le suicidé a eu une idée merveilleuse d'accomplir son geste dans un site aussi époustouflant de beauté ! ) Ceci dit, quand la beauté picturale est aussi évidente ça augure mal pour la suite, souvent, surtout que la mise en scène elle-même n'est pas conçue pour ouvrir facilement les portes de l'histoire (mélange de réalité, d'imaginaire et de rêve pas vraiment évident au début, ou alors mon cerveau vieillit et perd sa perspicacité ! )
Cette introduction pourrait laisser entendre que je suis restée en dehors de l'histoire, mais pourtant ce n'est pas du tout le cas, ceci grâce à l'écriture incroyablement fouillée des personnages, la précision chirurgicale des dialogues (surtout du fait que Sore est chinoise, maîtrisant mal le Coréen)  Ils nous permettent de pénétrer au cœur des sentiments, des hésitations, des choix des deux personnages principaux. Ce travail du scénariste et du réalisateur est magnifiquement soutenu par le talent impeccable des acteurs qui nous font partager, non, mieux, vivre leurs déchirements intérieurs. L'esthétique très poussée de l'image et le raffinement presque excessif de la réalisation deviennent alors le soutien des personnages et leur mise en valeur, alors qu'au départ je craignais qu'ils en soient écrasés !
J'ai adoré le fait que la relation des deux héros ne se concrétise jamais, qu'en fait cette relation n'ait jamais été accordée, lui est d'abord attiré, puis quand il comprend qu'il a failli dans sa tâche de policier, il part, et là c'est elle qui se découvre un sentiment qu'elle ignorait, s'étant simplement servie de lui jusque là. Cela lui rendra une certaine pureté qui la conduira à la solution définitive de la fin et qui la sauvera d’être totalement la froide manipulatrice qu’elle semblait être jusque là. Car il faut bien reconnaître que l'intrigue policière n'est que le support d'une étude très fouillée de la psychologie complexe des personnages !
La fin est époustouflante d'imagination, de beauté et de désespoir, c'est la fin grandiose d'un opéra, les cris d'appels et le bruit des vagues en constituant la musique !
C'est un film que je reverrai car je comprendrai mieux l'écriture de [b]PARK Chan Wook[/b] et je pourrai mieux le déguster depuis la première image !  

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Achei ruim

Dê-me uma boa razão pela qual um policial casado que está interrogando um suspeito se apaixona por ele?!
A parte da obsessão romântica do filme não me cativou, não me fez torcer por eles em momento nenhum.

Você se pergunta o que está acontecendo e, quando começa a revelar, continua confuso (ou eu que sou sonsa).

As atuações foram maravilhosas, mas acho que não captei a real essência desse filme, porque não gostei não; Não consegui captar a singularidade que me disseram ter.

Pra esse filme ter ganhado um prêmio tão bom, os críticos devem ter olhado com uns olhos que o público não vê, devem ter se encantado com os cortes ou a forma da edição sei lá (um olhar poético talvez?! )

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