Volume 113

In recent years, feminist film theory has continued to reflect on the structures of the patriarchal gaze in mainstream cinema. This paper is based on Laura Mulvey’s theory of the "male gaze" and combines it with bell hooks’ concept of the "oppositional gaze". It examines the visual subjectivity and counter-gaze strategies of the female protagonist Song Seo-rae in Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave. Using close reading to analyze camera language, character dynamics and narrative architecture, we reveal how Song Seo-rae negotiates her subjectivity through the act of seeing under the condition of being seen. The research is centered around the following questions: whether women can truly look, and whether Song Seo-rae's gaze constitutes a challenge to the gaze system of patriarchal hierarchy. The findings indicate that her "counter-gaze" operates as performative empowerment. Her scopic sovereignty is consistently obedient to patriarchal narratives. Her scopic sovereignty is consistently obedient to patriarchal narratives. While it satisfies a male’s desires of her, it leads to her self-destructive endings. Decision to Leave thus articulates a complex, paradoxical feminist gaze praxis: one that simultaneously reinscribes patriarchal norms and lightens a female’s awakening and negotiation of gaze sovereignty.

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