Park Chan Wook’s latest is both a sludgy police melodrama and a minor masterpiece. You can have both in the same can. The story is pure B-movie: Policeman falls for chief suspect femme fatale with predictable results. But there are so many elements of this film which are brilliant that the banality of the narrative is irrelevant. Firstly there’s the construction of the narrative, split into two parts framed around two different cities, which somehow gels perfectly. Secondly there’s the use of edit and photography, with the director frequently placing a character in a scene where they are not present. Somehow these scenes add to the texture of the film creating a filmic universe where the camera’s all-seeing-eye maps onto that of the characters. In a way this feels truer to life than a mere physical representation of the scene. We are present in other people’s lives when they are not there. We may not have a physical presence, but we exist in the mind. Wook directs with such confidence that these metaphysical ideas are allowed to permeate the film, constantly propelling it on to another layer. There are moments where the edit is baffling, as a character trips between reality and imagination, but gradually this all stacks up and the film gathers power as it roars towards its high-peak melodrama finale. Finally, it is fascinating to see how the film succeeds in incorporating technology into the everyday, in a way that it feels as though Western cinema constantly struggles to do, still fighting to leave the twentieth century. Technology in the film (smart watches, cellphones) is more than a tool, it is another limb, something that permits the characters to deepen their relationship with their own interaction and consciousness.
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