“Memento Mori” Theatrical Poster
Director: Kim Tae-Yong
Co-director: Min Kyu-Dong
Cast: Park Ye Jin, Kim Gyu Ri, Lee Young Jin, Kim Jae In, Lee Eon Jung, Baek Jong Hak
Running Time: 97 min.
By Numskull
I watched this noted Korean film for free (thanks, Netflix!) in glorious pan & scan (NO thanks, Mei Ah!). And I don’t regret it. Watched it twice, I did. Damn good movie. But…”masterpiece”? I dunno about that.
The setting is an all-girls high school jam-packed with snotty and contemptible bitches. Among the few who does not desperately require forty lashes to correct her behavior is the quiet So Min-ah, who starts to drift apart from her friends upon becoming mesmerized by a mysterious diary she picks up one fine day. It belongs to Min Hyo-shin and Yoo Shi-eun, two other students who are treated as outcasts (big loss) ostensibly because they’re lesbians but truthfully because the other girls have simply decided to dislike them.
The film (or at least the subtitles) translates the Latin expression “Memento Mori” as “Remember the dead.” But, according to my copy of “Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs” (written and copyrighted by Carl Lindahl, John McNamara and John Lindow from Oxford University Press and yes, I did just say “my copy”; shut up), it means “Remember you must die”, and is described as “[A] generic term used to describe objects or writings serving as reminders of human mortality, especially popular in northern Europe from the late thirteenth century.”
“Writings serving as reminders of human mortality” certainly brings the diary to mind, and although its contents are affectionate rather than morbid, it becomes an intriguing peephole into the past for Min-ah when Hyo-shin (the more erratic and needy of the co-authors) plummets from the roof of the school to a bloody death on the concrete and stone cold Shi-eun doesn’t seem to care. Nevertheless, the film is better served by the translation it provides, “Remember the dead”, since Hyo-shin isn’t about to let everyone forget about her, despite the obstacle of not being alive anymore.
And so the supernatural element kicks in. Memento Mori expertly keeps the viewer hooked, cruising with comfort and confidence between solemn but bearable art house material and Lesbian Schoolgirl Vengeance From Beyond The Grave. The mood-setting camera work and musical score are there to enhance the story rather than compensate for its shortcomings, and sympathizing with the right characters poses no problem at all. Mr. Goh, a depressed young teacher for whom many of the girls have the female equivalent of a hard-on, is an interesting supporting character, and everyone is injected with plenty of personality. (Note that I did not say this makes them likable.)
The conclusion of the film feels somewhat uncertain and perhaps even a little incomplete, but I don’t think of it as a really bad ending; it’s just where the movie decides to stop. It is satisfactory, if not wonderfully fulfilling. Other than that, Memento Mori is very much a thumbs up affair.
Numskull’s Rating: 8/10
