NZIFF Film Review: "Decision to Leave" ("헤어질 결심") (2022).

From the director of Oldboy and The Handmaiden comes Decision to Leave (헤어질 결심). This South Korean romantic mystery film directed by Park Chan-wook and written by Park and Jeong Seo-kyeong. A kind and polite detective ‘Hae-Jun’, one day, he was in charge of the murder case in the mountains. After he meets Seorae, the wife of the deceased, he feels suspicious and curious at the same time. A detective melodrama depicting the detour between suspicion and interest, the detour between the two.

By October 2020, Tang Wei, Park Hae-il, Lee Jung-hyun, Go Kyung-pyo, Park Yong-woo and Jung Yi-seo were cast in a romantic mystery film to be directed by Park and written by Park and Jeong. In an October 2021 interview, Park stated the film is deep into post-production, but with an uncertain release date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, the film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. It screened for the first time at the Lumière Grand Theater on 23 May 2022 and was subsequently released theatrically in South Korea on 29 June 2022. In April 2022, MUBI acquired the rights to release the film in North America, the United Kingdom and Ireland, India and Turkey. It will be released theatrically in the US and UK on 14 October 2022. According to CJ E&M, the film was sold to one hundred and ninety two countries ahead of its premiere in competition at 75th Cannes Film Festival. It will hold its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022.

The degrees of shock, the foreshadowing and throwbacks throughout (both visual and in dialogue) all seem diminutive next to the amazing performances by the male and female lead. However, my affection for the film has mostly to do with the performance of Wei as Seo-rae, a sullen housewife who's desperately earning for the attention and love of Park He-il's insomniac detective.

For a movie so relentlessly bleak, the film is also one of the most romantically charged movies in the mystery genre. The film truly enters the dreamy, disturbing world of psychological romance. Park manages to sidestep a lot of the cliches of this genre by injecting seemingly inappropriate bits of humor. The broad humour ends up undercutting the potential poignancy of the ending. Never mind, because it's not every day you see two people locked in such a colourful apache dance of destruction, filmed with such aplomb. Perhaps no auteur is as suited to the mystery genre as South Korean director Park Chan-wook, a man who has made a career out of films full of sexual perversity, doomed romances and a seemingly insurmountable volume of violence. The story of a kind and polite detective compromised by the victim's wife is opulently brought to the screen by one of South Korea's leading filmmakers. What sets Park's film apart from the standard mystery picture has more to do with its tone, characterizations, and its strange blend of lyricism and pitch-black comedy.

Simon says Decision to Leave (헤어질 결심) receives:

Also, see my reviews for The Little Drummer Girl and Loving Highsmith.