Last night was my twenty-first birthday. I also watched a movie, and failed to remember something I totally forgot.
One late January a little birthday boy was born, and his birthday has been celebrated in that same cold stretch of January ever since. This year’s birthday was very busy and more than a little frustrating. But after so many classes, labs, and obligations, I finally had a handful of free nighttime hours.
The genius that I am, I spent one of them scrolling on my phone. It’s MY birthday, and I get to choose the detachment method… I also forgot to make dinner, so I spent an hour making Shepherd’s Pie, a really indulgent meal my mom used to cook for me. Then I spent a half hour eating and browsing for movies to watch. I eliminated my candidates down to two: Blue Velvet and Memories of Murder.
Blue Velvet is often touted as Lynch’s most accessible movie, so I’ve been eying it as a kind of gateway drug. It’s high time I took a deep-dive. With his tragic passing lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Twin Peaks, a show close to my heart, and all the intriguing things it did. Kyle MacLachlan being in this one was admittedly all I needed to know to be intrigued.
Memories of Murder is a 2003 slow-burn neo-noir by MY GOAT Bong Joon-ho. I’m in love with this genre (And I know Lynch is no stranger to it either!), especially its gritty colors and themes. I decided to watch it, and it delivered on both aforementioned things. It was also, unexpectedly, absolutely horrifying. The criminal acts shown in the movie are grotesque, and it being based on a true story was sickening to learn after credits rolled… That pie sat like a brick in my stomach all throughout.
So much of the movie pivots around memory, with the brunt of it (Spoilers) being a memory in the mind of Song Kang-ho’s character. Potential suspects for the ongoing crimes are also beaten within an inch of their life by police as they try to extract false memories. There’s a great scene in which a police detective walks into the interrogation room to see a suspect hanged upside down with a rope. The detective doesn’t even acknowledge it, this type of suspect torture being so normalized for him.
Memory is extremely fickle, and the film knows this. In the very last scene, as a young witness is describing who she saw, twenty years after the murders occurred, there’s a sense of hopelessness. Even if she could manage to recall his face, he’s surely long gone by now. It was this scene that made me realize I would be the world’s worst police witness.
I could tell you what I ate for dinner last week, but I couldn’t possibly tell you who I saw, or where I saw them. And dates are maybe the hardest for me: The majority of my childhood memories I can only, broadly, place between ages five and twelve. I can hardly even describe what I did for my birthday last year. Yet, I feel so confident when assuring my mom that MY memory was correct and HERS was false.
Admitting to poor memory is difficult, because it implicates so much of what I hold dear. Do all of those childhood memories really exist, or is it just my approximation of them? Did the first date with my girlfriend really go like how I remember? Can I even claim that my favorite book is truly my favorite if I can’t remember ~80% of the words?
After watching the movie, I had a similar memory-dilemma. I learned I misplaced a gift card that had a nice sum of money on it, and I still feel like the biggest idiot ever about this. It’s not even the first time I lost serious money due to my poor memory. Whatever, Memories of Murder was a poignant, effective film. It stirred up real emotions in me. As for the birthday, well, the day itself isn’t important. I’m just glad I can spend the days surrounding it so happily, with the people I love. I still remember how to do that at least!