posted by Erin
What started as an attempt to review a scary (ie: Halloweeny) movie with a lesbian theme ended up missing the date of Halloween completely. It is now a chilly November morning, on the 2nd, the candy-induced haze on my brain only just beginning to lift. Still, I thought even if this review couldn't make it for Halloween, it still had lesbians in it and as we know, every day is lesbian day.
I wanted to do another movie review but I also wanted to keep with the Halloween theme. After a lot of pondering and narrowly evading the mess that is A Werewolf in a Women's Prison, I decided to go with Memento Mori, a Korean flick that doesn't really know what it wants to be and, had it simply played the forbidden romance angle, might have succeeded as an excellent and much-needed piece of foreign lesbian cinema.
"Underwater is the only place that's safe to read this diary! Glug glug..."
I've devoted countless hours and money researching the strange thing that is lesbian schoolgirls and even now, I can't give anyone a solid answer to the issue. Why do they exist? Why do they all look like they're in their mid to late 20's? Are the skirts cold? This doesn't reflect well on me, as I apparently watch nothing but movies about lesbian schoolgirls. If this blog is any indication whatsoever. AND IT IS.
Memento Mori is actually branded as an Asian horror movie in North America so of course, I innocently picked it up from my local movie pirating torrent website, expecting nonstop, horrific fun. Usually if a movie is a surprise lesbian movie, I have nothing but praise for it. It's like finding the last coke in the fridge. It's like finding out that midterm test you completely blew out your ass only occurred in a dream and the class itself doesn't even exist. It's like when you discover that you're capable of ejaculating. I was surprised when Memento Mori turned out to be a movie about lesbians. But I was less than thrilled to find out it absolutely blew as a horror movie.
Again we find the movie taking place in an all-girl's school. Our lovers this time are Hyo-shin(the bisexual, crazy one) and Shi-eun(the partially-deaf, brooding one).
Because they go to an all girl's school, no one really finds their relationship all that hot and the other girls, besides all being uglier than our lesbians, are fairly vocal in their hatred of the couple. Hyo-shin and Shi-eun's relationship is so riddled with obsession and weirdness that eventually the two become close enough to telepathically communicate with one another. I know some girls who did that and they say it took all the passion out of their relationship.
I remember in my high school, while ridden with hicks and moonshine, there was at least an honest attempt at a 'safe space' in the counselor's office. The teachers at least paid lipservice to the idea of being tolerant of homosexuality. There is no such attitude in this school. The girls and the teachers are happy to pick on the couple and at any given moment, in any classroom scene, one of the teachers will fly off the handle and just go Charlie Sheen on whichever person happens to be the closest to them while they rage. I guess the crazy in North Korea has started to travel south. You can't really fault anyone for that.
Min-ah serves as 'that girl that the "normal" viewers can relate to'. One day she stumbles across a rather elaborate diary that was written by our couple and, intrigued, she begins to read it. She serves as a window to which we can look into the relationship more closely. The unsettling obsession and closeness between the two girls becomes clear to her from the diary but like reading Twilight, she can't really put it down. She starts to think she might be gay for Shi-eun. Shi-eun and Hyo-shin break up sometime in the series of events, which is a little confusing because a lot of the film is supposed to be in flashback, not that they blur the edges of the picture or anything.
Hyo-shin sleeps with one of the male teachers for some reason and gets herself pregnant. She tries to get back with Shi-eun who is understandably hesitant and so Hyo-shin, in her grief and North Korea-induced craziness, commits suicide by leaping off the roof of the school. Every student is shocked but no one really seems all that sad to see her go. You know, business as usual I guess.
This is when the movie remembers that it's actually supposed to deliver on its promised horrors and so, like a soap-opera being rewritten at the last minute to include a half-assed attempt at bringing back a character that died, so to does Memento Mori spin a half-assed tale of Hyo-shin returning to haunt the school as a ghost. She serves to seek out her revenge by... well locking the doors and turning off the lights, essentially. We spend much too long watching everyone in the school, absolutely insane with fear, running around trying to open doors while the face of Hyo-shin looks on from a projection on the ceiling.
Then the movie abruptly ends... Nothing is really solved. No one gets what they deserve. Hyo-shin stays dead. A lesbian horror movie from North America would reek of exploitation and cult fetishness but Memento Mori actually makes for a half-decent drama. Not to mention that it's just lovely to look at. The problem is the horror aspect. It takes away from the reality of the situation, it makes the whole thing laughable all of a sudden. I would love Memento Mori if it had disposed of the ridiculous attempt at scares and focused on simply the love story between the two girls. But hey, I guess the cast and crew have to eat too.
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