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Most people tend to avoid foreign movies. Whether or not you think you will look up a movie with subtitles, this one is worth talking about.
Memories of Murder is not the sort of thing that is produced in the West these days. It's a movie based on a real event in Korea. It was the first case of a known serial killer in that nation's history, and there was talk of amending that country's constitution specifically because of the events that transpired over it.
Making a movie about something that shocking was a difficult, politically dangerous thing. In many ways Memories of Murder is one of the most historically important movies made in the last twenty years, or would be regarded as such if it had been produced in the US.
Memories of Murder is told through the eyes of two policeman. They lack modern forensic methods, and are faced with a terrible string of murders which terrify everyone. Under massive pressure, one of them throws out the rulebook, and begins torturing suspects because he feels the gravity of the crime warrants it.
One of the men tortured turned out to be a mentally ill man who fell under suspicion because he was in the area of the murder acting suspiciously. He is beaten and tortured,
and forced to dig his own grave. Later one detective forms the theory that the reason he acted so suspiciously is because he witnessed the murder.
The detectives return to question him again. The boy is so terrified of the men who beat him last time that he flees and mistakenly runs in front of a train. He is killed, and its never known what he saw. The only certainty is that he lacked the mental faculties to have committed the crime himself.
Many people were roughed up along the way, the boy being only one extreme. Years later the detective involved has retired and become a businessman. Despite that, he still finds himself retracing his steps, futilely trying to figure out what happened. In the movie, as in real life, the serial killer was never caught. He is doomed to spend the rest of his life wondering what happened.
The director visited more than 300 locations for shooting, many of them true locations where events in the movie transpired. It was a tremendously difficult shoot, both for political reasons and financial ones. However it was a huge success with both critics and audiences, and is the most honored movie ever produced in Korea. It also received numerous awards in much of the East.
It was directed by Jong Boon-Ho, the same man who later directed Snowpiercer.
I actually regret visiting such a dark topic as this, but I think that when someone does this sort of work it deserves to be mentioned. Its an excellent piece of work reviewed only as art. Great cinematography was used. But beyond that, what really makes the movie worth talking about is the incredible courage that it took simply to make the movie.
I'll try to come up with a comedy next week. In the mean time, I hope that everyone is staying warm. I understand that New York will be digging itself out of the snow for awhile, but here in Pueblo the temperature has risen to a stunning seventy degrees. It's been a very strange winter here.
Have a good morning everyone.