As someone who grew up on murder mystery TV series (Murder, She Wrote, Poirot, Agatha Christie, Gil Mayo, etc.) and books (Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie), it is always interesting to see a full-length mystery movie.
I naturally look for all of the murder mystery tropes: red herrings, footprints, left behind clues, false leads, the suspicious one on the detective team, the "detective music," newspaper headlines letting the audience know what just happened.
In Memories of Murder, many of these tropes were present--but something seemed sort of "off" about them. If they were there, they would be slightly duller, confusing, or tweaked in some way--almost evoking a sort of uncanny feeling for me. I wonder how much of this uncanny feeling came from the change in setting, and the fact that it was all working against a different cultural and linguistic background.
For instance, when the classic detective music played in one of the beginning scenes, it felt obviously and awkwardly 'Western'--and I can't help wondering if Bong Joon-ho did this on purpose.
Another theme was very noticeable to me: humans looking consumed by the lush landscape. A lot of the film took place in rice patties, and many shots showed the characters from knees-up. I ended up relating this feeling of being lost in nature to a lot of these mystery tropes being 'lost' on me as a viewer. Even when there is an expectation of finally figuring out 'whodunnit,' we are let down--it is as if everything is falling short of being completely "there." Instead of seeing this as a failure on the film's part to be fully captivating, I saw it as a tool to reveal something. "What" I am not quite sure, but it felt powerful at times....
No comments:
Post a Comment