The new film by Park Chan-wook, author of the acclaimed ‘Oldboy: Five Days to Get Revenge’, is coming to movie theaters in our country, and here we tell you why you shouldn’t miss this attractive love story with a lot of police intrigue.
Even though M3GAN Y Avatar: The Path of Water are dominating the box office, this does not prevent starting this weekend you can enjoy on the billboard of Cinemex and Cinépolis two new proposals: the bloody Terrifier 2 by Damien Leone and also the enigmatic The decision to leavedirected by Park Chan-wook.
In his most recent film, the South Korean filmmaker opts for a much more discreet and complex scenario compared to his revenge trilogy. (which includes the acclaimed Oldboy: Five Days to Get Even). This is a story that subtly and imperceptibly transforms from an intriguing detective story to a love story about desire and loss. Below we share some reasons for you not to miss this fascinating film.
1. There are subtle nods to Alfred Hitchcock
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At the 2022 Cannes Film Festival press conference, Park Chan-wook said he was very surprised when the press and critics described his film as a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s cinema and especially to the film Vertigo. The master of suspense is probably a subconscious influence, but the truth is that The decision to leave develops at a very high level building a fascinating detective puzzle and a growing love tension, rarely explicit, usually repressed, but ultimately disruptive.
2. It won the prestigious Best Director award at Cannes
Korea JoongAng Daily
From his debut JSA – Joint Security Area until The maid, Park Chan-wook has proven to be a conscientious and careful filmmaker in each of the elements that make up the cinematographic language. Beloved by many, but still underrated, The decision to leave is an amazing and perfect film lesson for which he won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival.
3. It’s a master class in film directing
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As in a Wong Kar-wai melodrama, the passion of the protagonists explodes thanks to the cinematographic form. Unlike some of Park Chan-wook’s previous films, which seemed to defuse the dramatic-sentimental-sultry inspiration of his characters, in The decision to leave every shot and every detail of the staging contributes to the construction of an impossible love story.
4. Combine the classic and the modern
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The story recovers various tropes from ‘film noir’ and classic detective stories, there are even echoes of brief encounter by David Lean. The premise begins around the death of a man who fell while climbing a mountain. Accident, suicide or murder? The protagonist interrogates the young widow, a migrant from China, creating a language barrier that complicates interrogations and reconstructions. Behind that barrier hides a kind of ‘femme fatale’, capable of seducing the detective, but who may end up emotionally involved more than he expected.
5. Human relationships are represented in all their complexity
(there are echoes of David Lean’s Brief Encounter)
The decision to leave is an incisive and memorable reflection on what differentiates marriage from love, routine from passion. It is a film in which the constructive, the habitual and the conformist give shape and organization to life, whose flashes of happiness derive from chaotic and destructive forces, equally necessary for our existence, although difficult to contain and manipulate.
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5 reasons to see ‘The decision to leave’ in Cinemex and Cinépolis