***** Memories of Murder (2003)Filming on location can be a tricky thing. Getting permits, capturing the right lighting, trying to effectively manage an entire film crew plus equipment...it's a headache, and a major reason why some filmmakers prefer to shoot inside a studio. Fortunately for us, the makers of Memories of Murder opted for the former and, as a result, the film bears some of the most strikingly authentic and original visuals in a police thriller.
Dickensian conditions, for once, aren't watered down for squeamish viewers. The look of the film is refreshingly filthy - a police station cluttered with paperwork and bedraggled suspects, restaurants filled with smoke and static noise from an old TV, a squalid flat infested with flies, train tracks battered down with mud and rain. These settings may seem familiar to you, being somewhat typical of the genre they belong to, but when was the last time you felt the characters were truly inhabiting the world portrayed onscreen?
The story takes place in Korea, 1986. A rural village is terrorized by a local serial killer whose victims are single, young and attractive women. The police round up the usual suspects, but they have no luck and no leads probably because...well, because they're stupid. And incompetent, arrogant, dishonest and abusive. I've never been more enthralled by a movie where the cops are so cheerfully ignorant and dimwitted. At one point during the film, a detective consults a shaman to help him with the case. Her advice? "Move the main gate of the police station 10 km southwest." How this has any bearing on the case I'm not exactly sure, but the detective is convinced that it does.
As I mentioned before, the characters act like they belong to the time and setting of the film. Furthermore, they have limitations - no Sherlock Holmes-like intellect, no state-of-the-art forensic science to help them (in a hilariously random moment, a tractor runs over a footprint in a crime scene). Compare this movie with an episode of CSI and you see just how often procedural dramas these days rely on plot devices rather than delve into the nitty gritty grind of real police work. Memories of Murder is fascinating to watch because the detectives work with what little they're given and aren't always led methodically to the right answers (another film that comes to mind: Kurosawa's High and Low). They stumble onto clues, yes, but more often time than not those clues lead to nowhere and end up making the case more frustrating and confusing.
If you're sitting at home one evening, debating whether to watch this movie or The Mentalist...please, turn your gaze from Simon Baker's handsome mug and watch Memories of Murder. You won't be disappointed.
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