The Mountain and The Sea: Decision to Leave (2022)

Oldboy and The Handmaiden director Park Chan-wook returned with the Academy Award-nominated film Decision to Leave in 2022, and though slightly underrated, the movie masterfully employs his ongoing tales of romance and violence. The movie uses two contrasting images, the mountain, and the sea, to reinforce the film's central themes: restraint, obsession, and freedom.

The mountain is introduced at the film's outset as a detective named Hae-jun is hired to investigate the suspicious death of a mountain climber to understand whether he was pushed or fell. The mountain represents stability and control; it rarely changes and the shape stays the same, unlike the sea, which is endless and the waves are constantly moving. As a part of his job, Hae-jun is drawn to the mountain both physically and metaphorically, and even though the mountain symbolizes fixation, his investigation of the mystery of the climber and growing desire with the climber's wife Seo-rae disrupts this stability. She becomes the object of Hae-jun’s scrutiny and desire. Their intimate relationship creates the tale of passion, and he continuously attempts to ground himself in rationality, much like the unyielding nature of the mountain.

The Sea, in contrast, represents escape, and Seo-Rae's attachment to it is made clear in the movie from the beginning. The movie directly references the Confucius quote, “The wise love water, the benevolent love mountains... I am no benevolent. I like the sea.” the wallpaper in Seo-rae's home shows thousands of waves crashing into each other even though they look like mountain peaks from afar. They look so close, but out of each other's reach.

Water is a recurring motif in Seo-rae’s life, symbolizing both her yearning for freedom and her inevitable doom. She arrives in South Korea through the sea, hiding in a cargo ship, and at the end of the movie (huge spoilers), it swallows her existence. Instead of drowning herself in the sea, she buries herself in the sand, and creates her mountain to die in.

The interplay between the mountain and the sea, and Park Chan-wook’s use of these natural elements is what makes Decision to Leave a haunting meditation on love and loss.