What Is The Ending Of Memoirs Of A Murderer Explained?

For better or worse, the movie Memoir of a Murderer brings closure to the events that unfolded by solving the immediate crime. But, as with many things, the moral implications of said events are left wide open. (Note: the following contains major spoilers for the climax of the movie.)

It is also worth noting that the old man is an unreliable narrator. The films’ ending mixes the concrete facts of a confrontation with a young murderer and its consequences with the hazy flashes of guilt and memory. So the emotional payoff is complicated, and the film’s conclusion is anything but a clear moral judgment. Instead the audience is left with the image of an old man, his past and present colliding. Can such a man be forgiven for his past crimes? The film doesn’t say. I left the theater pensive about the fragility of identity and how one deed, however good, cannot erase the deeds of a lifetime past.

We watched ‘Memoir of a Murderer’ last night. The ending was so powerful, I sat in silence for ages after the credits rolled. It was a very satisfying end to a thrilling movie. On the surface the ending provided what we call in the industry ‘catharsis’ for our hero. After many years he had finally found a way to deal with his past as a serial killer. He faced up to his newer nemesis, a young man committing murders in the same way and bringing terror to those around him. The older man managed to force the truth out of the younger man, in the process of course neutralising the threat to him and those he cared about, including a lady and a child.

Where the movie truly gets under your skin is with its non-closure. The main character is unreliable because his memories are deteriorating and they still have the stains of his old confessions of being a serial killer. This means that even though he is saving a woman and a child, that does not necessarily mean he is a hero. The scenes of his memory are folded into the present action. At the end, he is seen to be writing in his memoirs or dealing with his written work, but then there is destruction. Then there is erasure. So the ending is very ambiguous. The scenes of physical action (killing of the young murderer, the rescue of the woman and child, the repercussions of his actions) are clear enough, but the emotional ending is very vague and leaves the audience with many questions.

This hesitancy to make sure the audience gets a definitive answer to the query of the film is apparent in the re-watch of certain shots. For example, the close up of the old man’s relics, his repetitive use of words to try and remember what he has forgotten, and the focusing on the faces of characters as opposed to the action of said character all solidify the main thesis of the film: memory makes identity and when memory is stripped away then identity becomes a battlefield that one must fight to be victorious. The ending of the film left me feeling uneasy but also very protective of the old man. He is a man that I feel we as an audience do not fully understand but we also care for deeply. His decline into not remembering who he is and therefore becoming a mere shells of his former self is very relatable and heartbreaking to watch, leaving me to wonder if I should forgive the old man for the parts of himself that he cannot remember.

The other patients in the institution are also living in their own separate worlds. The ending of Byung-soo is not unique to him. Rather, there are many people just like him who are living in their own separate realities in order to escape their painful pasts. We see how Byung-soo’s delusion has been a means to survive but he is not alone in his means to survive in his own unique way. The shot of all the other patients also explains that they too are living in their own unique ways in order to survive. Their means to survive may differ from Byung-soo’s but it is all the same in the end. The wide shot of the other patients allows us to see that Byung-soo’s personal tragedy is not unique to him.