For over half a century, we have seen many filmmakers engage in an act of chasing after Alfred Hitchcock – obviously not in the literal sense, but rather in how there have been concerted efforts to follow the guidelines he meticulously set down in his long and prolific career, with the term “Hitchcockian” becoming one of the most overused descriptions in film criticism, but yet remains such an alluring concept. The sense of mystery, intrigue and suspense has driven many artists to try and replicate the great director’s legacy. A few have been relatively successful, with the most significant not coming from the ambitious wunderkinder that start out their careers trying to follow his example, but rather those that are more established, having developed a solid understanding of the industry as a whole, which is an intriguing concept that brings us ever closer to seeing these kinds of films produced again on occasion. This specifically draws our attention to Decision to Leave (Korean: 헤어질 결심), in which director Park Chan-wook, who is certainly far from a greenhorn (having been responsible for some of the most exciting arthouse films in recent years) takes on a story that many have openly called a homage to Hitchcock. Park has been making films for a while, and has steadily risen to become one of the most acclaimed directors of his generation – but even at its most fundamental level, Decision to Leave feels like a major moment for the director, an impactful and evocative blend of mystery and dark comedy that insists that we take a closer look at the world the director is quietly constructing for us, leading us down a path of intrigue and puzzlement that will be challenging to even the most attentive viewers – and yet still feels so beautifully poetic and unexpectedly unique in ways that are extraordinarily surprising, even if they can veer towards being slightly more dense than we’d initially expect from a film such a this – but if Park was going to pay tribute to the Master of Suspense, he was going to do so with as much dedication to the most intricate, layered details as possible.

It certainly isn’t difficult to see why many have found correlations between Decision to Leave and the films that Hitchcock made – the premise itself is remarkably akin to many of the great director’s finest works, with the story of an insomniac detective who sets out to solve a murder, only to be caught up in a web of deception and manipulation by an enigmatic femme fatale that serves as his biggest obstacle, being very much aligned with the framework established in works like Vertigo, a film that Park seems to be actively referencing in small but significant ways. This is a major deviation from the recent movement towards neo-noir, where effortlessly charismatic but deeply troubled detectives intertwine their lives with characters of low moral fortitude, implementing these ideas but in a way where they are explored and expanded with considerable effort, which seems entirely easy for a director who has actively been pushing boundaries of his craft for as long as he has been making films, which takes us back quite a while to his origins, where the traits that would define him as a filmmaker are very clear right from the start. There’s a level of complexity that Park brings to Decision to Leave that is quite admirable – the collision of visual and narrative are always important with films like this, and he seemed singularly disinterested in making something that was yet another aloof neo-noir in which a down-on-his-luck detective gets involved in a plot much deeper than he expected. Instead, his ambition was to weave together something that feels both mysterious and dreamlike, drawing on numerous sources for inspiration, making Decision to Leave a pastiche of not only Hitchcockian suspense, but also implementing ideas established by many celebrated artists, whether in terms of the story or its realization of the ideas pivotal to its development, making this film a multifaceted tapestry of ideas and details that all come from the director’s deep appreciation for his craft.

The emotional content of a mystery film is an art that has seemingly been lost as time has gone on, but which Park works laboriously to reimplement in Decision to Leave, which is as much about the narrative details as it is the specific sensations that occur alongside them. The tone of the film is quite peculiar – there are moments that we’d expect to be deeply serious, but are executed with an almost sardonic sense of humour (although not enough to make this a comedic film – rather, they soften the tension and add a touch of levity to an otherwise overwhelmingly dark film), and some of the more touching moments are conveyed with a sense of foreboding dread that seems misplaced at first, until we realize it was entirely purposeful. In essence, nothing particularly notable happens in Decision to Leave – the mystery is solved almost midway through, although we may not notice this at first, since so much of the story begins to deviate into other sub-plots, which eventually manifest into major plot components themselves. This is a relatively linear film in theory, but the many intriguing directorial flourishes that Park inserts into the narrative are always very captivating, and help keep the film moving along at a steady pace, despite the very clear sense of meandering that gradually comes through the story. Ultimately, this is a film that’s a success depends on the extent to which the viewer is willing to leap onto the wavelength of the story, where we put all of our faith in the director to make the right decision and lead us down the path that will get us to a satisfying conclusion – and while it may have quite a complex and somewhat divisive ending, it all begins to fall into place remarkably well as the story progresses and we start to get answers to these challenging questions. The atmosphere Park creates (along with some of his artistic collaborators – Kim Ji-yong’s cinematography and the score composed by Jo Yeong-wook add considerable value to the mysterious details that lurk beneath the surface of the film) is the major contributor to our sense of both curiosity and unease, and as the film explores this world, we find small details that ultimately add to the experience in creative ways.

Decision to Leave is a masterful experiment in terms of playfully examining the inner life of two characters that become intertwined as a result of grim circumstances, which leads to a film that is equally about solving the mystery as it is about examining the psychological states of these two characters. What is often a trait of film noir and those influenced by the genre is that the viewer feels like we are seeing the events through the eyes of the main character, or at least accompanying them on their journey. This film goes a different direction – we are never allowed into the minds of either of these two characters, and instead we stand outside, peering into their lives like voyeurs, observing their growing relationship, which is in itself built on a combination of lustful attraction and a sense of danger that they are both actively seeking in this new relationship, which is sordid and forbidden, but yet so alluring to both of them. Park is a very experimental director, and while he does adhere to a form of storytelling that is coherent and makes sense, he also doesn’t pass up the opportunity to insert a few more peculiar aspects into the narrative, particularly those that feel like they are coming from a place of deeply profound curiosity about the human condition. Decision to Leave eventually shifts away from being purely a murder investigation, and becomes something else, looking at the relationship formed by these two people (both of whom are seemingly lacking in moral virtue, more than other central characters found at the heart of the genre), and using this as the foundation for a compelling and often quite disturbing depiction of human desire, and our incessant lust, whether it be for carnal or intellectual stimulation, both of which are at the heart core of this film, which uses these concepts throughout, but sparingly in an effort to avoid becoming too heavy-handed in its commentary.

Decision to Leave moves from focusing on the mystery to the people on both sides of it, centring on the detective in charge of investigating a murder, and the wife of the victim, who also happens to be the prime suspect in what is clearly a case of homicide rather than a suicide, the distinction between which is established very early on (and thus leaving very little space for ambiguity), and how they form quite an unconventional relationship that many of us may even consider perilous in some regards. As a result, the film produces two exceptional performances in the form of Park Hae-il and Tang Wei, who anchor the film and guide us through it. Park is a fascinating actor – he plays the part of the detective with elegance and a certain level of intelligence, but he’s also not afraid to shade in some of the character’s more peculiar quirks, which plays into the idea that NAME is not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill detective, and as a result his investigation will also be somewhat unorthodox. Tang, on the other hand, is already well-established outside of her native audience, having done nearly two decades of extraordinary work – and Decision to Leave contains one of her most enigmatic, challenging performances, showcasing her ability to touch on many of the most complex details that would define such a character. Consider film noir and its offshoots are rarely known for bespoke characterization (often relying on stock characters, a remnant of the fact that these were based on cheaply-produced pulp fiction novels that were charming primarily because of how raw and unpolished their use of characters tended to be), it’s intriguing that this film becomes so dependent on how we perceive these characters as more than just meets the eye, the aspect on which much of the film tends to hinge, and the source of many of its most unique and perhaps even polarizing qualities, helping differentiate this film from many others that were crafted with similar (if not identical) narrative intentions.

Decision to Leave is neither Park’s best film, nor his most ambitious – but considering this is someone who has seemingly set out to make films in every conceivable genre, being just another fascinating work from a director that has been able to master both style and substance. It is important to note that Park is not a director who makes films that are entirely accessible – they’re very much polarizing socio-cultural and historical manifestos that draw on a range of subjects to explore a certain narrative, which are then in turn filtered through a darkly comical, vaguely absurdist lens, which emphasizes the oddities that lay dormant within even the most docile segments of society. It creates a challenging, engrossing and very entertaining film that doesn’t always offer us the solutions we believe we deserve, but instead takes us on a journey where the answers we receive are exactly what are required to propel such a story forward. It’s a captivating and deeply compelling depiction of an unconventional romance, set to the backdrop of a murder investigation (rather than the other way around – you’d expect that this would prioritize the criminal aspects and have the romance be secondary, which is yet another subversion of expectations that Park is taking from Vertigo), and where the rich imagery and very compelling storytelling structure creates a film in which we are invited to explore, albeit from a distance. Decision to Leave can often feel cold and arid, and its approach to certain psychological ideas feels slightly misplaced – but yet there is so much unexpected sophistication in how Park constructs this film, proving his skillfulness as both a storyteller and visual stylist, which are perfectly calibrated throughout this film. Intriguing and provocative, and filled with many moments of curiosity-inducing complexity, Decision to Leave is a tremendously fascinating film, and one of the more audacious experiments of the past year.