Decision to Leave (2022)
Directed by Park Chan-wook
Chicago International Film Festival 2022
I want to believe that I’m a fine, decent soul. But there have been numerous moments in my life where I’ve made the unethical choice. Cheating on partners, lies, giving in to wanton desire, etc. I tried to rationalize it all, believing that the dull lethargy of day-in-day-out tedium could be broken by a passionate embrace. For a while, at least, I framed my own unhappiness as due to the failings of others rather than my own. I had to disappoint too many people too profoundly before it all started to make sense to me.
I imagine two camps will form when it comes to the subject of Park Chan-wook’s new film, Decision to Leave. There will be those who empathize with the romantic underpinnings of a depressed married detective becoming infatuated with a murder suspect, compromising his integrity when confronted with the passion of a woman. And there will be others who see this flawed detective as a self-destructive sort, selfishly unconcerned with those he hurts. Both are right, both are wrong, and neither captures the nuances of what makes Decision to Leave one of the best films of 2022.
A mountaineer’s body is found and Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) is the lead detective on the case. He investigates the mountaineer’s widow, Seo-rae (Tang Wei). A Chinese immigrant in South Korea, Seo-rae is a mystery to Hae-joon, as the detective becomes increasingly drawn to her tale of woe. Hae-joon’s interest in Seo-rae conflates with both the decline of his marriage and the realization that Seo-rae may have actually murdered her husband. The bond the two develop is one that builds gradually from pained glances, to sharing a meal with one another, etc. The references to Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love feel earned in these moments, as Park captures their romance as a struggle between the flesh and normative expectations. There’s a distinct sense that both Seo-rae and Hae-joon are thinning away, magnetically drawn to each other but constantly forced to pull away. An unrequited crush, but one with an edge. It makes little sense to either Hae-joon or Seo-rae; what could draw these walking red flags to each other? I often ask myself that same question.
There’s a discussion in the film about quitting smoking. It’s used as an analog when considering the act of murder; do it one time and it’s a gateway to more. Park tacitly makes a connection to the act of cheating. With Hae-joon moving with his wife to a new neighborhood, rebuilding their relationship, and trying to hoist himself out of compromising his values for Seo-rae, we see him once again attempt to refrain from a world of impulse. Speaking from experience, it takes active restraint to hold back, to remain steadfast when a torrent of passion threatens to overwhelm you. It’s difficult to go backward from real, genuine love and we see that turmoil encapsulated in all of Hae-joon’s actions in the final act of the film.
The two camps that I suggest forming as a result of their sympathy/condemnation of Hae-joon is the kind of problematic binary that I think I used to approach films with. Heroic/evil, black/white, good/bad, etc. These dichotomies helped me make sense of the world, creating an unsteady and inflexible framework of how things are supposed to be. It was really about control. If the world operates under this framework, then I can modulate my reactions and plan accordingly. Act out of accordance and the confusion of the uncertain led me down a path of anger, frustration, and despair. I think I spent a surprisingly long amount of my life utilizing this belief system, and it’s been til my 30s where I realized how obstinate this has left me. We often deny people the complexities of their lives, and you don’t fully appreciate it until you experience it in its absence. Which is to say; to empathize with pain, sometimes lip-service is not enough, you need to experience it to really know. I doubt I would have appreciated Decision to Leave as much had it not been for the cumulative experiences of the past four years, but I’m glad it’s here for me now.