Sweet sweet, Memories you gave me...

#23 - Memories Of Murder - 2003

"But...Is wanking a crime?
-- Rape Suspect

OK, if you want to get technical about it, this isn't a horror film in the traditional sense. But it's genuinely a lot more unsettling than most of the films that have made it onto this list, and that counts for something...

The film, based on a true story (And also a stage play) begins in South Korea, 1986. The Country is under military dictatorship. In the province of Gyunggi there's body found of a Woman raped and murdered. Gagged with her own underwear. It becomes apparant that there's a serial killer on the loose, and Detective Seo Tae-Yoon from Seoul is sent to help investigate. For the local cops, led by Park Doo-man are helpless (And altogether useless). As the bodies pile up, both Men take more drastic measures to catch their culprit.

I first saw 'Memories Of Murder' a while back and it's stayed with me more or less since. Like I mentioned, it's genuinely unsettling, but it also harks to a time when Police were ill equipped to deal with such crimes. We take the like of Forensics etc with little value now. We just know it's there and we rely on it to catch our killers. But even at a time fairly recently as 1986, the whole concept was fairly non-existent. When at one point they get a break in the case and are able to get some scraps of DNA evidence it has to be sent all the way to the US for processing. Add to that Police corruption and non effective investigation methods (A lot of the evidence is improperly collected) and you have a pretty grim time on your hands.

Make no mistake, this film is dark. Like 'Kairo' last night, it carries with it an air of unease. You just know that there's little hope or redemption here. You can only watch helpless as people continue to spiral out of control, consumed by this case. Outside of that the most depressing thing about the film is the way that People just don't care. Like the multiple murders in Ciudad Juarez, where over 250 Women to date have been killed, the killings are allowed to continue thanks to ineffectual law enforcement and general public malaise. Better them than us.

As the quote up there suggests the film is blessed with some flourishes of humour. Albeit very dark. There's one Cop for instance who seemingly exists just to fly kick people, but even something as amusing as that takes a turn where it just gets a little too much. It's become somewhat of a trademark of Director Bong Joon-ho to inject his films with this moments of flimsy, and he handles these tonal shifts well, as he does a wonderful set piece where we see a Woman stalked and captured by someone in a field (But we see nothing of the actual crime). He also directed 'The Host', another film on this list, which can best be described as 'Cloverfield' meets 'The Royal Tenenbaums'

Finally, for me this beats out the recent 'Zodiac' as a story about all consuming obsession. Though the killer doesn't send letters to the Police, nor leave cryptic notes, just the act of him killing is enough of a taunt for those investigating it. It's handled all the more believably here than in David Fincher's (Otherwise excellent) film, particularly as we watch Detective Seo Tae-Yoon go from ideological and level headed Cop to just as thuggish as the rest of the Police force.