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memories of murder
Jul. 1st, 2009 01:01 amI remember hearing good things about this and seeing it once in a video store, so I finally decided to watch it on Netflix's instant viewing thingy. It's disappearing from the instant queue on July 1, so I was like, better watch it tonight.
Memories of Murder (South Korea, 2003) is a very well-done movie (and if I was being precious I'd be so good as to call it a "film"). Simply, it's about a rural police force trying to catch a serial rapist/murderer with a very creepy M.O. which I won't spoil. Apparently it's based on South Korea's first known serial murders, which took place between 1986 and 1991. So it's a crime movie in the sense that you follow a string of suspects and watch the cops fuck up interrogations and struggle to find evidence and witnesses, but it transcends the average crime movie too - while never turning its back on the genre. It's still a crime movie - but it feels like a very real, very human, and very well-rounded walk through a little village's encounter with its first real menace in forever. Parts of it are quite funny - like when the second crime scene's pristine footprints are run over by a tractor, and gawking villagers keep sliding down the mud slopes toward the corpse. I'm used to the high-powered Law & Order-style police procedural, so it was unusual for me to watch the cops hide from the suspect when he unexpectedly comes trotting along, for the radio station to dismiss the police's phone call as a prank call, and for the police to just walk into people's houses and start looking around. They also hang people upside down in their cellar. So in some ways the first half, especially, is a tragicomedy about provincial law enforcement, sort of like Midsummer Murders but without manners. Or just Midsummer Murders in the third world.
But the second half becomes much sadder and more serious as the police get increasingly frustrated and frayed around the edges. The specter of police brutality and other questionable tactics weighs heavy on this movie, tempered by the gruesomeness of the deaths. You start to really appreciate the cinematography too - the vast open landscape, the contrast of the rice paddies against the lone factory and its bizarre nighttime dig site, the school that holds war drills and practices carrying the wounded back and forth, the village's imposed "blackout" meant to protect women that just ends up making sure there's no one around to help victims. It all becomes very striking as the sad score builds and all the innocent hijinks and sloppy police work of the first half start taking their toll on the cops and the villagers.
So overall, very nice little thriller. It's the kind of movie I think you would be hard-pressed to dislike. It's sort of got enough of everything, and enough overall quality, to please most everyone.
Memories of Murder (South Korea, 2003) is a very well-done movie (and if I was being precious I'd be so good as to call it a "film"). Simply, it's about a rural police force trying to catch a serial rapist/murderer with a very creepy M.O. which I won't spoil. Apparently it's based on South Korea's first known serial murders, which took place between 1986 and 1991. So it's a crime movie in the sense that you follow a string of suspects and watch the cops fuck up interrogations and struggle to find evidence and witnesses, but it transcends the average crime movie too - while never turning its back on the genre. It's still a crime movie - but it feels like a very real, very human, and very well-rounded walk through a little village's encounter with its first real menace in forever. Parts of it are quite funny - like when the second crime scene's pristine footprints are run over by a tractor, and gawking villagers keep sliding down the mud slopes toward the corpse. I'm used to the high-powered Law & Order-style police procedural, so it was unusual for me to watch the cops hide from the suspect when he unexpectedly comes trotting along, for the radio station to dismiss the police's phone call as a prank call, and for the police to just walk into people's houses and start looking around. They also hang people upside down in their cellar. So in some ways the first half, especially, is a tragicomedy about provincial law enforcement, sort of like Midsummer Murders but without manners. Or just Midsummer Murders in the third world.
But the second half becomes much sadder and more serious as the police get increasingly frustrated and frayed around the edges. The specter of police brutality and other questionable tactics weighs heavy on this movie, tempered by the gruesomeness of the deaths. You start to really appreciate the cinematography too - the vast open landscape, the contrast of the rice paddies against the lone factory and its bizarre nighttime dig site, the school that holds war drills and practices carrying the wounded back and forth, the village's imposed "blackout" meant to protect women that just ends up making sure there's no one around to help victims. It all becomes very striking as the sad score builds and all the innocent hijinks and sloppy police work of the first half start taking their toll on the cops and the villagers.
So overall, very nice little thriller. It's the kind of movie I think you would be hard-pressed to dislike. It's sort of got enough of everything, and enough overall quality, to please most everyone.
