Em Chamas

Burning is an excellent psychological thriller with the veil of mystery around it. The movie that intrigues you and leaves you with a lot of questions to ask yourself why and to give it a try to connect the small pieces of mosaic. The more you think about the story and dialogs more questions starts to go on surface. Many of them don't have definite answer. It leaves a lot of space for imagination and analysis. It is a great study of characters. Atmosphere in the movie is dark with a lot of suspense. Acting and direction was on the spot. But the story is the one that is really unique. I haven't read the short story of Murakami ,,Burning Barn'', but now I am more than interested. I think that the movie is worth watching more times in order to catch all the small details that you maybe missed when you watched first time.Recommended for the people with more time,patience and with the tendency to analyze.

Wow. Didn't do it for me. Characters were bland. Story was bland. Pacing was plodding and slow. I know I'm going against the grain here, but something definitely went over my head.

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.

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

What I really liked about the movie was the psychological tension building up during the film. You keep wondering what happened and are just left with a few clues which could be interpretated in several ways. The film brings some suspense which reminded me of some Hitchcock movies from the past. There was also a big difference with Hitchcock though: whereas Hitchcock uses strong acting, imagery and sound to build up the tension, in Burning there are not much scenes which please the eye, it's just all so... normal as is the acting. Furthermore, the script is slow... with several scenes which leave you wondering why you had to witness this information at all. This resulted in several people snoring in the Cinema I saw this screening. In all honesty, the film breathes an atmosphere simalar to the books of Murakami, which in my opinion also tend to be more poetic and slow - certainly no page turners and neither is Burning. So if you really like the books of Murakami, this is the film for you I suppose. Overall experience: bit boring, intriguing, weird, not much to please the eye or ear, interesting storyling. Worth to see it? YES, but prepare for a long sit and bring some coffee to keep awake.