Warning: This article contains spoilers forDecision to Leave.
When a frantic Hae-joon arrives, traces of the hole, and Seo-rae, are gone.
And it looks like nothing happened.
Tang Wei and Park Hae-il in ‘Decision to Leave’.Mubi
He leaves no trace of himself and basically evaporates from the world.
The story doesn’t really explain why he committed this particular form of suicide.
I never got to film this story.
Tang Wei in ‘Decision to Leave’.Mubi
I forgot about that idea for a while."
When it came time to write the ending forDecision to Leave, Park revisited the decades-old idea.
“Seo-rae must forever remain an unresolved case to Hae-joon,” the filmmaker adds.
“Seo-rae wanted Hae-joon to spend sleepless nights looking at a photo of her and thinking about her.
This might come off as a cruel kind of emotion, but this was her emotion.
So she has to find a way where she can disappear without a trace.”
We are borrowing the power of the ocean.
It’s also a method of patience a method of waiting and accepting one’s fate."
Just don’t interpret that devastating finish as a sacrifice.
That’s how I want the audience to think of the ending."
