Numerous flashlights shine in different directions from the bottom of a dark mountain. The film cuts to an aerial wide shot of an old man’s dead body. He lies upside down on a giant rock, like a floating dead fish in the ocean. None of his belongings are around him; even though he only takes a small portion of the frame, his red hiking outfit makes him eye-catching among the police officers and forensics in uniforms. This unnatural death in the mountain opens Park Chan-wook’s film, Decision to Leave (2022).
The dead man is the main character Seo-rae’s husband, and detective Hae-jun is investigating the case. As a young Chinese woman who moved to Korea because of the murder of her mother, Seo-rae becomes the primary suspect, and she is the murderer of her husband indeed. When Hae-jun questions her in the interrogation room, the camera catches them from the side. Their bodies and reflections in the mirror equally split the screen, and their heights match almost perfectly. Albeit it is the first encounter between a detective and a suspect, a man and a woman, their power dynamic is stable and balanced. The focus is on both of their bodies, blurring their reflections in the mirror. Then, Seo-rae quotes the Chinese philosopher Confucius’s saying that “the benevolent likes the mountain, and the wise likes the water.” When she adds, “I’m not the benevolent. I like the sea,” the focus is on Seo-rae’s body and Hae-jun’s reflection in the mirror, forming a perfect symmetrical mix of their identities. The cinematography projects the duality of both Seo-rae and Hae-jun. Seo-rae is an attractive and vulnerable widow, but she also displays her dangerousness and brutality to Hae-jun to seduce him. Hae-jun, who is supposed to be a logical detective, agrees with Seo-rae’s reasoning about mountain and sea, suggesting his hidden desire of risk is projected by Seo-rae, building an invisible connection with her. Then, the camera racks focus on Seo-rae’s reflection in the mirror and Hae-jun’s body in reality. The change in focus seems like separating them, but indeed suggesting their hidden link is like how the water reflects the mountain and projects a distorted image. In the confined interrogation room, their dualities are like twins, echoing their similarities and building this fated but unjustified love. Seo-rae displays the dangerous part that Hae-jun is hiding as a detective, and Hae-jun shows the security that Seo-rae needs in her heart.
The mountain is never about benevolent to Seo-rae. After Hae-jun knows that Seo-rae killed her husband from the mountain and poisoned her mother, Seo-rae asks Hae-jun to spray her mother’s bone ashes from the mountain. At the mountain cliff, Seo-rae wears a headlamp and adjusts the light to directly target Hae-jun, just like how the detectives are using the flashlights to locate Seo-rae’s husband’s dead body at the beginning. In the dark, Seo-rae’s headlamp is the only light source on the screen, examining the surroundings and Hae-jun, like the predator locating its prey. Then, Seo-rae turns the light to the cliff, directing Hae-jun to walk to the cliff's edge to spray her mother’s bone ash. The scene is silent except for Seo-rae’s footsteps and Hae-jun’s accelerating breaths. A hand-held camera approaches Hae-jun from the back, shaking, tilting, speeding up, and cuts to a shot facing Hae-jun with the sound of two bodies crashing together. The cinematography suggests Seo-rae can push Hae-jun off the cliff, but it turns out to be a back hug. Hae-jun’s reaction of closing his eyes, pausing, and breathing heavily shows Seo-rae’s shift from evil to love surprises him, as well. The mountain of death becomes where Seo-rae’s mother’s body returns, and Seo-rae’s love settles.
But Hae-jun can’t cover Seo-rae’s crime, and as she can’t give him up, she commits suicide. She stands in a sand hole with only her head above the ground, drinking a bottle of alcohol. Behind her is a pile of sand, forming the shape of a mountain. The camera pulls back, revealing the ebb that fills up the hole with the sand that buries her. We can only hear the wave hitting the sand, meshing the sea and the mountain, gradually wiping away the trace of her existence.
A mountain is formed by sand and rock, while the sea gathers water and takes away remnants of sand and rock from the mountain. Seo-rae has been trying to deny the remnant of kindness in her, convincing herself that all she needs is the wisdom of the water instead of the mountain. However, at the end, she uses the sand to make herself a part of the mountain buried by the sea, accepting the benevolent part of her wins her wisdom because of love. Juxtaposed through film, mountain and sea are reconciled in Seo-rae’s act. She makes herself part of both, a mountain buried in the sea, accepting their inseparable nature, the co-existence of love and death, a balance of wisdom and benevolence.
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