Memories of Murder is a crime/mystery drama in which detectives in the Korean countryside
investigate a series of murders, but do not succeed in finding the culprit.
What surprised me about the film is that I did not feel cheated in the film’s
final moments when it becomes evident that the murderer will never be found. Before
watching the film, I had not read Choi’s essay, and so I did not know that it
was based on a true story.
The
difference between Memories of Murder and other unsolved crime dramas,
such as Zodiac, seems to be that there is never an uneventful moment in
Bong Joon-ho’s film. The cluttered mise-en-scène really piqued my
interest and my mind was automatically drawn to each scene’s components,
perhaps because I was looking for hidden clues which might lead me to predict
the following sequences. In this case, the mise-en-scène added ‘silent’ content
to the film which juxtaposed the crime and action sequences as well as shots of
the countryside containing open space, thus creating balance. The film’s historical
references to police violence in Korea in the 1980’s and the student
democratization movement, as well as its use of nostalgia and irony (mentioned
in Choi's article) additionally made Memories of Murder more relatable
to a Korean audience and perhaps added to its commercial success.
No comments:
Post a Comment