2018’s Burning, directed
by Chang Dong-Lee.
Starring Ah-in Yoo, Steven Yeun, Jong-seo Jun, Hye-ra Ban,
Mi-Kyung Cha, Bong-ryeon Lee, Seong-kun Mun, and Soo-Kyung Kim.
What is it about?
Set in present day Paju, South Korea, underemployed college
graduate Jong-su (Ah-in Yoo) runs into old classmate Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jun).
They hit it off, and she goes to Africa on a trip while he looks after her
apartment and cat. When she returns, she has a mysterious friend in tow- the
gracefully affluent Ben (Steven Yeun), who’s presence creates a sea change in
their relationship. When Hae-mi goes missing, Jong-su, struggling with employment and having
a bankrupt father on trial for assaulting the police, has to investigate where
Hae-mi has gone, and what it is about Ben that is so unnerving.
Why is it worth seeing?
Based off of the short story, Barn Burning by Haruki Murakami, Burning is a tribute to ambiguous
obsession (amongst other topics). Its mysterious ways are thick with confusion,
always right in front of us but refusing to be identified or quantified. It’s a
real trick how a movie with so few characters can be so complex.
Burning reminds me most of that Fight Club line about the memory of a woman is like the sore on your mouth that you can’t get rid of because you can’t stop flicking it with your tongue. After initially thinking that I didn’t see the appeal, I couldn’t stop thinking about its journey, its fog-like meaning clinging to my brain like velcro. Like all great things, Burning could also be about a great deal of other things: a current generation’s shiftlessness, the impossibility of love, a comment on artistic struggle, a metaphor on class warfare- or nothing at all. It is a tribute to the power of manipulation, where things have become far too objective by the end. The plot is simple, but where we go is not.
Burning reminds me most of that Fight Club line about the memory of a woman is like the sore on your mouth that you can’t get rid of because you can’t stop flicking it with your tongue. After initially thinking that I didn’t see the appeal, I couldn’t stop thinking about its journey, its fog-like meaning clinging to my brain like velcro. Like all great things, Burning could also be about a great deal of other things: a current generation’s shiftlessness, the impossibility of love, a comment on artistic struggle, a metaphor on class warfare- or nothing at all. It is a tribute to the power of manipulation, where things have become far too objective by the end. The plot is simple, but where we go is not.
Its protagonist, Jong-su, is typically so non verbal about
his thoughts, it's like Casey Affleck’s character in Manchester By the Sea if he became a detective. Jong-su is uneasy in
social situations, thick with young adult energy that he cannot figure out how
to harness. Really, he’s the antithesis to Ben- whom is slick, wealthy, and
could not be more vaguely condescending… or popular. The 2 of them merge
together to ebb and flow while we try to figure out which is what- can we
settle on the term ebbow? Together they pine for Hae-mi, who’s history remains
more mysterious than originally thought.
Unfairly deprived of a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination, Burning is memorable stuff, where there’s nowhere to go but forwards, downwards, anywhere, for reasons that are unclear. Even by the end, where the results are ultra clear, we still don’t know for sure. In the best way possible, it’s a lot like life that way.
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