Movie Review: Burning

Burning ***** / *****

Directed by: Chang-dong Lee   

Written by: Jungmi Oh & Chang-dong Lee based on the short story Barn Burning by Haruki Murakami.

Starring: Ah-In Yoo (Lee Jong-su), Steven Yeun (Ben), Jong-seo Jeon (Shin Hae-mi), Soo-Kyung Kim (Yeon-ju), Seung-ho Choi (Lee Yong-seok), Seong-kun Mun (Lawyer), Bok-gi Min (Judge), Soo-Jeong Lee (Prosecutor), Hye-ra Ban (Jong-su's Mom), Mi-Kyung Cha (Hae-mi's Mom), Bong-ryeon Lee (Hae-mi's Sister), Wonhyeong Jang (Won-hyeong), Seok-Chan Jeon (Seok-chan), Ja-Yeon Ok (Ja-yeon). 

 

The great South Korean director Lee Chang-dong makes his long awaited follow-up to a pair of subtle masterworks – Secret Sunshine (2007) and Poetry (2010) – and delivers his best film to date. Burning adapts and expands a short story by Haruki Murakami, and turns it into a two-and-a-half-hour slow burn thriller that so gradually, expertly shifts gears from one thing to another that you don’t quite realize it’s switched until it’s over. It is a masterful film – and a haunting one, that lingers in your mind long after the end credits role.

 

The film focuses on Jong-su (Ah-In Yoo), an aspiring writer, working part time as a delivery man in Seoul – when he isn’t his family’s rundown family farm not far from the North Korean border, as his father faces (yet another) criminal charge. The movie starts when he runs into Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jeon), a young woman from his hometown, and immediately falls for her. They don’t have much time together before she’s going on a trip to Africa – but she asks him to watch over her cat while she is away. He never sees the cat, but it must be there – the food is always gone, and the litter box needs to be cleaned. When Hae-mi returns, it’s in the company of Ben (Steven Yeun), one of those young men of affluence that no one ever sees working, and no one quite knows what he does (Jong-su calls him Gatsby). What follows isn’t much of a love triangle – Hae-mi is quite clearly with Ben, even if she and Jong-su never have a conversation about it. But she still wants to be friends – and so does Ben. But there is something about Ben that doesn’t sit well with Jong-su. And in the audience, we understand why – while Ben is outwardly friendly, there is an air of superiority and condensation in his every interaction with Jong-su. But is it really just jealousy, or is there something deeper there? Does Jong-su read too much in his every interaction with Ben – and how Ben treats Hae-mi? A scene about half way through the film, with the two men sharing a joint at Jong-su family farm, where Ben confesses his secret to Jong-su – that every couple of months, he burns down a greenhouse – and he has another one picked out, quite close by – is the one the whole film hinges on. That sequence ends with a surreal dance sequence by Hae-mi in the fading sunlight to Miles Davis. From that point on, the movie becomes a different animal.

 

While the film concentrates on Jong-su throughout – the film never really leaves his side – it’s almost as if each of the three acts has us trying to figure out one of the three major characters. In the first act, we are alongside Jong-su, as he tries to decipher what exactly Hae-mi wants from him. Their relationship is sweet in the way that teenage relationships are sweet, as Jong-su seems very naïve and inexperienced, although Hae-mi does not. There is a note of sadness to their interactions as well – and Jong-su never quite figures her out. When Ben arrives in the second act, the focuses switches to Jing-su trying to figure him out – who he is, what he does, why he does it. Ben is one of those infuriating people who everyone loves because he’s so nice, so charming – and yet you cannot stand him for some reason (in one scene Jong-su struggles to explain to Hae-mi what seems off about Ben, and all he can come up with “Look at him – cooking, while listening to music”). As Jong-su admits at another point, to him the whole world is a mystery – Hae-mi and Ben are to him. The final act, which plays like a thriller, is also a more meticulous study of Jong-su – as now, we in the audience are examining him, and what he does, and his actions, to try and figure him out. By the end of the film, stripped bare and childlike, Jong-su may understand more than he did, but he still doesn’t have his answer.

 

Burning, like Secret Sunshine and Poetry before it, rewards viewers who have patience, and watch the films closely. Both of those films were longer as well – not quite as long as Burning, but close – that takes its time revealing the mystery at its core. In Burning, class is never explicitly referenced – never really talked about, but really is at the core of the whole movie – and what it all means. It’s there in Chang-dong’s other movies as well. This is the best work yet by a filmmaker I’ve thought is one of the best in the world since walking into Secret Sunshine completely cold at TIFF back in 2007 – and still doesn’t quite have the reputation in North America he deserves. Burning will hopefully change that. It is nothing less than a masterpiece.