The Favourites
Memories of Murder
Bong Joon-ho’s 2003 masterpiece Memories of Murder follows a group of small town detectives as they become steeped in the crimes of a serial killer. Having never encountered crimes such as these, the police are completely out of their elements, and through their cockiness and false bravado they constantly let down the people in their community. The film is a condemnation of not just the evil killer, but the systematic abuse and privelages taken by those in power that allow such dangers to continue to lurk in the shadows. This is not a film where good triumphs over evil; this is a film where good is a corrupted, rotten thing. It’s only through reflecting on this corruption that the police are able to move forward in their work, but by then it’s far too late.
The four male detectives we meet represent different elements of this corruption and failure. Park Doo-man (Sang Kang-ho) represents bravado and over-confidence. His belief that he can tell a criminal just by looking in their eyes is proven wrong time and time again, but he never backs down from his claim, showing that the truth is not as important for him as his gut feeling. Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang-kyung) is the Seoul detective who comes to the small precinct in order to help with the investigation. While he is by far the most competent of the detectives, he still displays arrogance in his unwillingness to share ideas with the other detectives. While rightfully seeing them as buffoons, he fails to see he is unable to solve this case on his own. Cho Yong-koo (Kin Roi-ha) represents brutalism, as his only characteristic is his willingness (and near glee) in torturing suspects. Their sergeant Shin Dong-chul (Song Jae-ho) represents the corruption of bureaucracy, as he’s unwilling to discipline his staff if their torture gets the results he wants. All of these men care more about themselves and how they are perceived than with finding the serial killer that stalks their town, and the killer escapes because of their various levels of selfishness.
All of their flaws can be traced back to toxic masculinity. They are prideful to a fault, boisterous and full of false bravado. Multiple times their own insecurities stop them from listening to sound advice, such as when the lone female police officer Kwon Kwi-ok (Go Seo-hee) tells them that the same song plays on the radio every time a murder happens. The rivalry between Seo and Park causes them to miss clues and infight, giving the killer plenty of time to attack again. The torture of their suspects and forced confessions show their allegiance is not with the truth, but only with their success. Through the first half of the film these failures are played for laughs, for farce, as it would almost be hard to believe the incompetence on display otherwise.
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