Memories+of+Murder

Like the title of the movie, the story is about Park's memory of unsolved serial murder case. In 1986 Kyeong Ki do, a young woman is found raped and murdered in a ditch near a field. Less than two months after the first murder happened, another woman is found raped and murdered in a field. Local detective Park Doo man tries to find out who the murder is, but since he never had dealt with such a serious case before he is clumsy. The key evidence is improperly collected; the police's investigative methods are suspect. Detective Seo Tae Yoon is sent from Seoul to assist finding the murderer. Approaching to the murderer differently, Seo Tae Yoon cannot convince Park that the murders are committed by same person until his predictions of another murder come true. While Seo investigates and tries to gather the clues based on logics, Park beats confessions out of the suspect. Despite their efforts to identify the serial killer, the case remained unsolved. Few years later, they retire from detectives and lives individual lives. The movie ends with the scene where Park revisits the first murder site. - This movies is not about finding the real murderer of the movie. The theme of the movie is the despairing situation of the time period. Even though the cruel murder case was happened in series, even the police was unable to identify the killer and the case remained unsolved. Moreover, In 1980s many Korean people strive to regain their human rights and freedom, so they set demos against the government which tries to control the people's freedom of speech. Even on the rainy day when the murderer emerged, all the police officers were all sent to restrain the demos that they missed the chance to catch the murderer. The main characters need national peace and proper,organized system to find the clue of the murderer. - The overall tone of the film is serious and hopeless.The movie reflects confusion the nation faced during 1980s that we hardly pay attention to the serial murder. Due to this fact, innocent people were sacrificed. The continual failure of police's catching the murderer and the unstopping of the murderer make me feel hopeless.
 * the plot of the film (what the character wants)
 * the theme of the film (what the character needs)
 * the tone of the film (how the film makes you feel, or the emotional content)



back then for not being serious enough. For this particular scene, the bird eye shot is used. The bird eye shot gives the audiences a feeling that somebody beyond their reach is watching what they are doing. In this case that somebody can be a murderer. Even though the detectives are striving to catch the murderer, the murderer commits another murder at the same time avoiding the detectives' entrapment as if he ridicules their efforts to find him. The composition used for this scene is diagonal. The characters are standing and shot diagonally. This Diagonal composition is usually used to suggest tension or anxiety, which fits well into this scene because they are all in the cabin waiting for the murderer to appear.
 * Lighting, setting, actor placement, acting, shot, and composition**: This scene is when the two detectives are waiting in the small, old cabin for the serial killer to come so that they can trick the serial killer by sending out the woman in specific clothes-red dress- that the serial killer only kills. Two girls in the scene are the students who are avoiding rain. For the lighting, the director used low key. The low key creates the clear light contrast, getting lighter inward and darker outward. This contrast makes the audiences focus on the center where all people are. Moreover, it creates intensity and horrifying mood, anticipating that something bad is going to happen- which is a murder for this case. The setting of the scene has meaning in it. Inside the cabin, the two detectives are waiting for the murderer to appear and to fall into the detectives' trap. However, outside of the cabin the murderer kills another woman, committing another crim. This explicit division of the setting implies that the two detectives are unable to catch the killer and that the serial killer is a lot harder to catch than they expect. It foreshadows the long run of the detective's search for the killer. For the actor placement, the actors are gathered in the center and much empty space is created. This kind of acting provides us the feeling that they are isolated. The isolation implies that they totally do not aware of or do not anticipate the simultaneously happening murder that commits by the murderer. Furthermore, the closeness of the actors ironically somewhat creates tension rather than intimacy. Furthermore, in contrast to the serious situation they are in, the actors ironically seem tensionless. The detective is smoking, the two girls are sharing the horror story they've heard, and other two actors are just watching the students talking. Such acting reflects the flaw in the process of catching the murderer. It also criticizes the attitude of the people towards the murder case



**Costumes, setting, color, camera movement:**This particular scene illustrates the interior of the busy police office back then in 1980s. In this shot, the detective, a protagonist of the movie, is interrogating a murder suspect and receiving the ordered food from the delivery man. All of the people appear in the scene are in relatively dark colored and uniformed clothes. These uniformed costumes make us feel they are confined in their world where they have their own ways of finding the murderer.<range type="comment" id="408852836_9"> However, dark color suggests that there is a flaw in their ways of interrogation to catch the real murderer and that unless they change the way they are not able to even identify him.</range id="408852836_9"> Moreover, the choice of setting reflects the state of mind of the detectives. The ceiling is relatively low ,and the office is filled with gray cement, almost colorless. This kind of setting provides the audiences a feeling of confinement. It illustrates that the detectives are now stuck and there is no advancement in the process, so they're having hard time identifying the real series killer. Moreover, there is barely a movement of camera. The camera motionlessly shows the busy police office scene which makes us think that what we can only do is just staring at the hopeless interrogation.



**Props, Setting, character placement:** On the early morning of a day, someone appears out of the fog. <range type="comment" id="408852836_10">The cloudy fog represents the mystery of the murder case</range id="408852836_10">. The detectives are striving to find the serial killer, but they could not even find out the clue. As the fog blocks the sight, the murder case blocks the detectives from finding the criminal. <range type="comment" id="408852836_11">Moreover, the endless road symbolizes the futureless interrogatio</range id="408852836_11">n. It seems that the case will not end unless any hint of the murderer is found, and that the case will further fall into a maze. In contrast, the emergence of the man from the blurry fog implies the emergence of the savior to solve the mystery that seems futureless. The man is walking toward us, which means that he comes in order to help solve the case of murder. The props used in this scene is a scarecrow. On the scarecrow, (even though you can't see in this shot) it is written that 'If you don't confess, then your limbs will be torn'. This creepy phrase is intended to show how desperate and anxious townspeople are that they write such phrase on the scarecrow to warn the murderer. <range type="comment" id="408852836_12">Moreover, the scarecrow represents the townspeople because like the scarecrow standing still, the only thing that townspeople can do is just hopelessly watching the murder goes on.</range id="408852836_12">