With its lush landscapes and ever-expliciting camera Take the decision to leaveIt looks and feels like any Park Chan-wook movie, but it resonates with the same passion as Golden Age noirs such as In a lonely place Double Indemnity. Unlike those two films, though, which center their stories around a hot-tempered screenwriter and naïve insurance salesman, respectively, Take the decision to leaveAnother common noir archetype is the lovelorn detective (played by Park Haeil).
In the film’s opening moments, Hae-jun, the detective in question, lands a case involving the mysterious death of a recreational rock climber. The case, in typical noir fashion, leads to Hae-jun crossing paths with Seo-rae (a spellbinding Tang Wei), his victim’s gorgeous but eccentric widow. Perturbed by how disinterested she is in unpacking her abusive husband’s death, Hae-jun begins to tail and spy on Seo-rae, unaware that doing so will only further intensify his attraction to her. This is a classic noir plot. It has a nod to Hitchcock and a light self-awareness. Take the decision to leave makes it clear that it doesn’t mind treading the same narrative terrain as so many of the noir classics that have come before it, either.
But what if? Take the decision to leaveIt lacks the same narrative invention that, for example, The HandmaidenOder Oldboy, it makes up for it with its grand sense of romance and acute understanding of love’s disorienting effects. Park’s attention to detail, obsession with self-destruction and ability to adapt to any situation make the film a natural fit. Take the decision to leave’s noir love story. At least, it’s hard to think of another director who would have thought to stage an interrogation scene as an informal dinner date.
It will be a while before it reaches the romantic, swooning rhythms of its second and subsequent acts. Take the decision to leaveIt begins on a frenetic and deliberately chaotic note. Throughout its first 20 minutes, the film zips and zags through the necessary exposition of its plot, committing to a rapid pace and choppy editorial style that miraculously manages to keep you on your back foot without unnecessarily obfuscating the details of Hae-jun’s case. Information, nonetheless, comes so rapidly and quickly that it can, at times, be difficult to keep track of everything that’s happening on-screen.
Once Tang Wei’s Seo-rae becomes the focus of Hae-jun’s attention, though, the purpose of Take the decision to leave’s initially chaotic rhythm becomes clear. The more that Park Hae-il’s sleep-deprived detective becomes consumed with the death of Seo-rae’s husband, the narrower his — and the film’s — focus becomes. Consequently, by the time he’s begun to literally imagine himself in Seo-rae’s apartment during his quiet, lonely stakeouts, we’ve already begun to understand that the frantic, practically slapstick style of Take the decision to leave’s first act is nothing more than a reflection of its lead detective’s obsessive, endlessly inquisitive mind.
Ultimately, it’s Seo-rae that brings a sense of calm to Hae-jun’s life and, therefore, the film that has been built around him. There are no moments. Take the decision to leaveThey are just as quiet or still as when Seo-rae gently guides Hae-jun through the stages that lead to falling asleep, or when she kisses him on darkened slopes of a mountain. Her ability to bring Hae-jun’s overwhelming life to a necessary halt makes the power of their bond surprisingly palpably, and it helps the film itself build an unconscious but intense emotional investment in their relationship, which it then weaponizes to devastating effect in its final third.
In Take the decision to leavePark also leaves the setting of the early 20th century. The HandmaidenTo make a strikingly contemporary noir, we left behind the past. Seo-rae & Hae-jun bond over sushi dinners, conversations by the ocean, and their quirky, yet charming interactions with technology. Seo-rae, who is a Chinese immigrant, frequently uses her phone’s translator app to speak Korean for her. Hae-jun records his stakeout notes and saves them as voice memos on his phone. Apple WatchSeo-rae is also astonished by this fact, which allows them to enjoy further their mutual observations.
Through their respective voice memos and phone translations, director Park both highlights the moments of miscommunication that sit at the very foundation of Hae-jun and Seo-rae’s relationship and uses them to bring the two closer together. As is the case in every detective-suspect relationship, it’s less the desire to understand each other and more the knowledge that they never truly will that draws Hae-jun and Seo-rae together. They share moments AirPods to listen to Hae-jun’s stakeout observations or stare into each other’s eyes while a robotic voice translates their words for them, therefore, becomeTake the decision to leave’s most intimate and sensual. They are the instances, at least, in which Hae-jun and Seo-rae’s romantic desires are laid utterly bare.
As Seo-rae, Tang Wei also gives one of the year’s best performances, bringing an open-hearted vulnerability and strangely childlike sense of curiosity to Take the decision to leave’s central murder suspect. Seo-rae now feels free from her abusive husband, which is evident in every Wei smile and nervous fidget. When Take the decision to leave eventually turns her relationship with Hae-jun upside down, Wei’s commanding presence is also powerful enough to make you reconsider which of the film’s two leads was actually the observer all along.
Take the decision to leave’s preoccupation with the nature of observation, especially when it comes to love, is ultimately what allows it to blend cinema’s romance and detective genres together so seamlessly. The film’s script, which was co-written by Park and Jeong Seo-kyeong, understands that many of the questions a detective is used to asking their suspect can, in certain instances, be strikingly similar to those that one lover might ask another. The case of Take the decision to leaveHae-jun’s questions to Seo-rae soon become less rooted within his murder case, and more in their uncertain affair.
The film’s third act sees Hae-jun permanently relocate to the small village of Ipo only to eventually discover that Seo-rae has followed him there. During their reunion in an Ipo fish market, Seo-rae tells Hae-jun’s wife (Lee Jung-hyun) that she came to the village for the weather. Hae-jun’s wife responds by noting that “no one comes to Ipo for the fog. They leave because of it.” Later, after another crime brings Hae-jun and Seo-rae together, the former follows the latter out to the edge of a rocky cliff only to furiously ask, “Is This why you came to Ipo?” Given the nature of the film’s third-act crime, it’s a valid question. However, it’s just one of many questions being thrown in. Take the decision to leave, the answer Hae-jun seeks has little to do with what he’s asked.
It’s the kind of indirect question that one only asks when they are so in love that they’re afraid to verbalize their actual concerns. A detective should, arguably, be above such issues, but love, like fog, has a way of descending so deceptively slowly that you don’t realize you’re lost in it until it’s already surrounded you. The magic of Take the decision to leave is in how it replicates that experience by so thoroughly entertaining and disorienting you that you don’t realize how invested you’ve become in its twisted love story until you find yourself lost in the haze of its achingly romantic final act.
Whether or not that’s the kind of experience fans of Park Chan-wook’s work will go into Take the decision to leaveExpecting is of no consequence. Despite the fact Haejun and Seo rae not having initially sought each others out for love, they never come to Ipo for their fog.
Take the decision to leave On Friday, October 14, the film hits U.S. theaters.
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