IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES

After the extremes of his earlier work, South Korea’s Park Chan-wook reins it all in to conjure one of the great films of his career: the beguiling DECISION TO LEAVE. But is it a film noir, a romantic drama or something even more cryptic? Total Film joins him to search for a decisive answer.

- JAMES MOTTRAM

There’s a scene early on in Park Chan-wook’s Decision To Leave that crystallises both its main character and the precision filmmaking deployed by the majestic South Korean. Hae-joon (Park Hae-il), an insomniac detective living and working in Busan, has arrived at a local beauty spot to investigate the death of a man who fell from the top of a rock formation, smashing his skull far below. In the very definition of methodical, Hae-joon decides to climb back up the rock to literally retrace the last fatal steps of the victim in reverse.

“It shows his pride, his professionalism, his sense of responsibility as a detective but also the fact that he is the person who would always go by the book,” says Park, when Total Film settles down for a chat with the greyhaired guru the day after the film’s rapturous unveiling at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This being “Director Park”, as his collaborators dub him, there are several more layers to consider. By the very end of this exquisite romantic mystery, Hae-joon will follow in the footsteps of this man rather more closely.

You might even add that this vertiginous scene – cunningly constructed with a fake rock formation that was blended with a dizzying backdrop in post – is designed to give you vertigo. Which would be apt. As soon as reviews began to spill from Cannes, the comparisons started. “Park Chan-wook’s Latest Is Serving Hitchcock Vibes” wrote Vulture, echoing the sentiments of many others. “This reaction is so amusing to me,” says Park. “Because while I was making this film I was not thinking about [Alfred] Hitchcock or any of his films.”