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Linguistic ambiguity is also so cleverly implemented, including through your use of a translation device for Seo-rae, which allows us to hear her say things two slightly different ways but obscures her tone. With smartphones and smartwatches, as well, characters record messages that could be interpreted as more intimate, inner monologues or further avenues for performance.
A great observation… As for the translating app, it came up in the later stages of writing the screenplay because at first I wanted to avoid the use of modern technology in a film with this classical and romantic tone. But I realized that it’s mandatory if you want to reflect the life of a modern person. So, instead. I decided to actively embrace the use of modern technology, which was best shown in the translating app. Only after incorporating the translating app did I realize that modern technology would actually add a lot of interesting elements to the story.
As you so poignantly commented on, even though the character of Seo-rae is good at Korean, only in certain situations would she choose to use the app. This is when she wants to communicate something quickly and accurately and when she’s emotionally very desperate. The audience can tell that emotional desperation even before knowing what she’s saying, before knowing the content of her dialogue. And Hae-joon will feel the same way as the audience. And then the voice actor translates the content of her dialogue; the translation itself is very accurate, but it lacks every emotion. And it’s also a male voice.
The audience comes to the realization that the meaning of each word is not all there is to a conversation. When you’re missing the emotions that are inside these words, you miss the whole picture. In order to see that bigger picture, you need to understand the translation of what’s going on but also go back into the past, to a few minutes ago — to remember Seo-rae’s hand gesture, her facial expression, her look, the color of her voice — and combine that with what you’re hearing from the translation app. I thought this would be a new way for the audience to experience movie-watching, to actively combine the visual and audio elements of what’s going on on-screen. Of course, this happens whenever you’re watching a movie, but I thought this would be an interesting way to experiment with this.
The production design in “Decision to Leave,” with these contrasting images of mountains and seas, is so evocative; I love the way the film’s second half provides visual counterpoints to its first half. What did you and production designer Rye Seong-hie look to for inspiration?
I’ve worked with my production designer on many projects ever since “Oldboy,” so we had conversations very early on in the process. Because we’ve been friends since I had the idea to make a story about a detective who falls in love with his suspect, that’s when we started talking. Very gradually, we decided the details of what the images would look like, even while drinking together as friends.
The significant piece to this production design was when we were talking about the book San-hae-kyung 산해경, which literally means ‘the book of mountains and seas.’ It’s a [Chinese classic text] that describes the eccentricities of the world — eccentric regions or eccentric people — and it’s not written by one author but instead a compilation of different people who have written about that topic.
Earlier in the screenplay, we had this idea of Seo-rae’s maternal grandfather having added his own stories to this book. Seo-rae had inherited this and copied down the book in her own handwriting to practice Korean. When the production designer heard this, I think he had that lightbulb moment in his head. And ever since then, he was working off visual motifs based on that element. We worked on the details of the production design together. For instance, the wallpaper sometimes looks like a mountain, and sometimes it looks like the waves of the ocean — similar to the dress, which seems green sometimes and blue sometimes.
Another significant happy moment of discovery was when we went location-scouting, and we saw a large rock at a beach that looked like a mountain. At the right angle, you could see both the mountain and the ocean, which are the two significant elements of the film. It also had that same pine tree from the mountain that we see in the opening scene, like a miniature of the mountain. It was perfect to use as a visual motif that connects parts one and two of the movie.
[Spoilers follow for “Decision to Leave.”]
As a blizzard surrounds Hae-joon on a snowy mountaintop near the end, I thought about Seo-rae’s words consuming and overwhelming him, without him grasping their meaning. Lack of closure and absence of meaning are major themes in your work, from the futility of revenge in “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” “Oldboy,” and “Lady Vengeance” to the unsolved cases at the center of Hae-joon and Seo-rae’s relationship in “Decision to Leave.” What keeps drawing you back to this theme?
That’s a really nice interpretation. I do wonder if you see a lot of that in my movies. I think it’s a theme that I like a lot. Why? Well, I guess the unanswerable or difficult question in this film would be, “Why did Seo-rae kill the second husband?” Hae-joon continues to ask Seo-rae why she came to Ipo, and, of course, this is because she wanted to be close to Hae-joon, which goes back to that question of why she had to kill that second husband. The logical answer that we hear is because she had the recording of his voice, and the second husband threatened to expose the voice to the public; Seo-rae killed the husband in order to prevent this and protect Hae-joon.
But the hidden purpose behind this is that she wanted to become a murder suspect so that she could have all the conversations she wanted with the man who refused to see her. On the snowy mountain, we hear their conversation. Seo-rae says, “A murder case needs to happen to see a man like you.” And he replies, “This is no time for jokes.” At this moment, Hae-joon sincerely does not know this hidden purpose, but Seo-rae was not joking. This is the emotion he feels toward something that does not logically make sense.
Hae-joon, near the last moment of the film, tells Seo-rae that “I never said ‘I love you’ to you,” but only after Seo-rae dies does he realize that he has said something that means more love than saying “I love you” one thousand times, which was telling her to get rid of the evidence. And after that realization hits him, that he loves her this much, he wants to admit it and yell out that he loves her. That’s why he’s passionately looking for Seo-rae. But the ironic thing is he’s standing over her grave. And I think this scene will show a sense of meaninglessness, the sense of injustice, or a game of sad fate — a lack of meaning and a sense of the absurd.
Translation by Jiwon Lee. “Decision to Leave” is in U.S. and U.K. theaters on October 14, via Mubi.