Just when I was thinking that the best guarantee of some privacy and isolation at the moment was a trip to the cinema, I actually found myself at a screening which almost resembled how things used to be in the old days: the place wasn’t exactly packed out, but it was still comfortably fuller than on most of my recent trips – the auditorium felt so crowded that I felt obliged to wear my mask, which hasn’t been the case previously. It was obviously slightly ironic that this should happen at a cinema which is about to close indefinitely due to lack of audiences, or films (depending on how you look at it). So, what secret had the Jericho Phoenix stumbled upon to lure in the crowds, given that there were only two of us at an Odeon screening of a commercial Hollywood genre movie the day before?
Well, it appears that if you really want to attract the punters, obscure foreign-language films from the early years of this century seem to be the way to go, for the Phoenix has been showing Memories of Murder (K-title: Salinui Chueok), the first major success of Bong Joon-ho’s career. When a previously little-known director wins a major prize, it’s quite common for the art house cinemas to dig up some of their older films (for instance, after Kore-eda won at Cannes with Shoplifters, the Phoenix revived After Life), but not normally for a full run. Did Memories of Murder do such good business at every showing? Oh well: strange days, as I’ve been saying since the middle of March. (It could be the high turn-out was due to the free popcorn being offered to every film-goer, a consequence of the place being about to close indefinitely.)
Memories of Murder is set in the mid-80s (the historical context does inform the story somewhat), in a small town in rural South Korea. Song Kang-ho (the father from Bong’s Parasite) plays Park, a local detective, who finds himself hunting a murderer after a young woman’s body is found in a drain. Finesse is not really a part of Park’s repertoire, and his approach is usually to decide who he thinks is the guilty party, contrive some evidence, and then get his sidekick Cho (Kim Roi-ha) to kick a confession out of them. This is not an ideal methodology for tracking down a serial killer, which is what they find themselves doing when a second body is discovered, and Park finds himself teamed up with Seo (Kim Sang-kyung), a cerebral detective from Seoul who is openly contemptuous of Park’s bull-at-a-gate approach to the case.
Unsurprisingly, the case Park has been trying to build against a scarred local youth with learning disabilities collapses, and the duo have to start again, trying to establish some kind of pattern – all the victims were dressed in a particular way, and the murders all took place on rainy nights. Could the playlist of the local radio station prove to be significant? How about some of the urban legends told by schoolchildren in the area? The detectives’ determination to solve the case increases as the killer strikes again and again, apparently with impugnity, but are they in danger of losing their objectivity with reagrd to the case?
Whatever else you might want to say about this film, it is not short of cheerleaders: its Wikipedia page currently suggests it is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time (not bad for a film I’d never even heard of until a couple of days ago), while Quentin Tarantino has also listed it amongst his favourite films of this century (which I suppose is the kind of recommendation which carries weight in some quarters). This is the kind of paragraph which seems to be heading for a ‘yes, but’ moment, and it is – however, only to the extent that I still think this is an involving and extremely well-made film, always certain to draw very positive notices.
The film is apparently based on the case of a real-life serial killer at work in South Korea in the late 80s and early 90s, but there is something quite universal about the story – indeed, given the acclaim Memories of Murder has received, I’m a little surprised we haven’t been treated to an American remake, as in many respects the film could easily work in another setting. You can see how Park fits into a distinguished lineage of corrupt small town cops from films dating back decades, and the friction between him and his bookish colleague also has a classic vibe to it. Strong performances from both actors give the film a really solid core, while Song in particular finds moments of black comedy that leaven the almost Stygian grimness of much of the story.
This is as gritty and bleak as any western crime drama, and its more sordid and repellent elements are handled graphically enough to make me suggest that this is not a film for those of sensitive dispositions, even though the level of actual violence is quite restrained. This is the kind of film where almost no-one seems without flaws or foibles, some of them quite serious. The cops’ building sense of frustration as one perverse inadequate after another proves not to be the murderer is almost palpable, and leads naturally into the climax of the film.
Here it takes a hard turn, in terms of genre conventions if not the actual plot: what has previous seemed to be a bleak police-procedural movie turns into much more of a drama, as the cops make serious mistakes that threaten not just the investigation but their careers. If the two of them eventually find a sort of understanding, it is under the bleakest and most downbeat of circumstances. I would imagine that many people may find the conclusion of Memories of Murder to be a disappointing anticlimax, but I think Bong just about pulls it off: this is more than just a detective story right from the start. Not an uplifting or escapist film, but a serious and ultimately satisfying drama.
(And when it was over, we emerged into the foyer to be greeted by a poster for No Time to Die proclaiming ‘Coming November’. Not November of 2020, though; if it turns out to be November 2021 – or even sooner – one wonders if there will still be any cinemas left to show it. I suspect films of Bond’s stature will always find a home; it’s the less-mainstream productions like Memories of Murder that will vanish from our culture if we lose the art house and independent cinemas. Lives matter more than culture, of course, but what is the value of life without art and stories? The cultural damage done by this virus is threatening to be every bit as severe as its economic impact, if not worse.)
No Chic. Just Geek. 