Burning - L'amore brucia

An amazingly graceful Korean story, exciting the viewer's attention and not letting go until the end. The film isn't for a wide audience, lasts 2 and a half hours, it goes slowly and asks a lot of questions. But the plot is built correctly, so that the viewer can understand the characters and start thinking about the questions that have arisen. The independent film seems to be divided into 2 parts: the first tells the story of a love triangle, and the second goes to a fascinating detective thriller. Director Lee Chang-dong wonderfully plays with the viewers' imagination who are trying to understand the thoughts of the main characters and their intentions. I liked very much the juxtaposition of the main characters - the writer Lee Jong-soo, who cannot see the hidden meaning and thus awakens a strong hunger inside himself, which doesn't allow him to sleep and to enjoy a life, to create; his opponent, Ben, a kind of rich Gatsby, quite the opposite one, he is filled with inspiration and understands the true beauty of all things, thus filling himself and everyone around him with a mysterious special flame. The narration is slow, during this time you can fully enjoy the visual component, excellent camera work. Scene setting, editing, actors' play - everything works for the picture and its success. No wonder that the film won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

While the movie has some good acting, direction and cinematography, the overall plot is paper thin and drawn out. This is based on a short story, and a short film would probably suit it better. I completely understand it is a "slow burn" movie, but it really did not have to be 2,5 hours long. The first 1,5 hour is simply to set up the premise. Should have been 30min at most to get it going.

That being said, the film does feel smarter in hindsight, when reflecting back on what characters said and you understand the underlying meanings of what they were actually implying and talking about. Don't expect a huge mystery plot though. This movie is 75% drama, with some mystery and thriller elements sprinkled on top.

I found this to be perhaps the most suspenseful film of the year so far. That suspense is not the usual type found in regular horror or thriller films, but it instead comes from the atmosphere and pacing of the film that hints at darker truths and ambiguities. Technically this is superbly done, with the cinematography and score standing out in particular. Although it's the lead actor who has to do all of the heavy lifting, it is Steven Yeun's performance that leaves the most impact. He's practically an enigma throughout the whole thing, and leaves so much open to interpretation and perception that it's not an easy role at all.

"To me, the world is a mystery."

Burning as childhood trauma (Jong-su forced by his father to incinerate his mother's clothes as a child), burning as a desire to know the meaning of life, or to have never existed at all (Hae-mi's memories of the Great Hunger dance in front of a bonfire in Africa, and the blazing sunset), and burning as sheer nihilistic sociopathy (Ben torching greenhouses for kicks, and that's of course not all he's up to). Three indelible characters, three brilliant performances.

The class distinctions are a little sharp between characters that live on a farm near the North Korean border, in a cramped apartment in the shadow of Seoul Tower, and in a luxurious suite in Gangnam, but serve to pose an underlying, smoldering question - how can we make sense of a world where a college graduate can't get a job that isn't dehumanizing, while the entitled rich blithely toy with people's lives without a care in the world? A masterpiece from Lee Chang-dong.

It's the rare film that gets its value upon reflection rather than during watching. It's not boring as such, but with its extremely long runtime it does generally feel slow paced and often runs the risk of being quite dull. Luckily though, the pure sense of mystery that surrounds the three core players (our protagonist included) and the film's world as a whole keeps things intriguing throughout. As the narrative progresses, however, and the core mystery of the piece arrives, things get a lot more intriguing and this intrigue lasts long after the haunting finale. That's where the film really gets its merit. None of the enigmas are definitively answered, and this leads to an extremely subtle - yet wholly rewarding - experience that allows you to draw your own conclusions of what it was actually about. The picture could be about several different things, and it all depends on the individual spectator response. This, as well as the complete lack of on-the-nose exposition, is very refreshing in today's age of cinema where nothing is left to the imagination anymore. We are not told, or even explicitly shown, anything integral to answer the core mystery and this allows you to reflect on all of the intricacies of several different scenes in order to draw your own conclusions. It really is a one of a kind experience that will leave you scrutinising for days, discovering a new narrative possibility upon every thought. Its slow pace and the sense that it's not really going anywhere might make it seem hard to get through initially, but once it's over it becomes a rich, rewarding experience. 8/10