A.k.a. Yeogo goedam II

Touted as a horror film Memento Mori actually plays out more as a romantic thriller. While some may find a few bits here and there “scary” most of the film revolves around two schoolgirls, their romantic relationship, the subsequent end of that relationship, and a slowly unfolding story explaining their romantic demise.

Memento Mori takes place at a girls school in South Korea and opens with Min-ah (Min-sun Kim) discovering a diary, a diary that she quickly puts back down, but upon leaving the grounds grabs a hold of it (seemingly without thought) and takes it with her. As Min-ah begins reading through the diary she comes to realize that it is the shared diary of two of her classmates. Two girls, obviously in a relationship, that now act as though they do not even know one another. Min-ah repeatedly tries to put the diary down but seems drawn to the pictures, love messages, and detailed events of the relationship held within its pages.

Not long after finding the diary and spying on the two girls one of them, Hyo-shin (Yeh-jin Park), is found dead of an apparent suicidal leap from the rooftop of the school. Min-ah is now drawn even further into the pages of the diary as she tries to understand what could have possibly happened to Hyo-shin and Shi-eun’s (Young-jin Lee) relationship to have lead to death... or murder?

As the story that led up to Hyo-sin’s death starts to unfold strange happenings begin to inhabit the school and its students. It isn’t long before Min-ah feels hands caressing her as she secretly reads from the diary in class, a girl’s laughter echoes throughout the halls of the school, doors of the school that were once unlocked are now locked and cannot be opened, and a male teacher who had befriended Hyo-shin seems to be in a state of shock over her recent suicide himself.

A major factor in the effectiveness of Memento Mori are the stunning and vivid visuals of Hyo-shin’s haunting at the school after her death. Also, the visions that begin to take over Min-ah as she continues to read from the diary in the hope of uncovering the secret that broke up the relationship between her two classmates. Tales of the consequences of reading a dead persons diary commingle with Min-ah’s desire to help Hyo-shin finally rest while also trying to uncover the truth behind her suicide.

Memento Mori won’t be for everyone, it is a film you will want to pay close attention to, partially because it is subtitled (unless you are fluent in Korean) and partially due to the intense visuals that flood the screen. To this day I still find myself coming across something that I didn’t see in the first viewing or catching another little piece that makes the puzzle come together that more securely. From the very beginning of the film the romance between Shi-eun and Hyo-shin will weave in and out of Min-ah’s voyeuristic attentions toward them and their diary, eventually mixing in the element of fear from Hyo-shin’s increasingly frequent ghostly hauntings of the two living girls as well as the school’s residents.

Memento Mori is one of the most fluid and aesthetically pleasing films I have run across. Able to hold your attention while allowing for that hint of concern over just what might be next to come. To this day it remains one of the most beautiful films I have seen, visually and intellectually.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older