Korean film-maker Lee Chang-dong makes the kind of simmering slow-burn
dramas that keep haunting our mind long after the screen fades to black. Lee’s
character studies, engulfed by humanistic concerns, unfold in a disquetingly
naturalistic fashion. He painstakingly realizes his character, so much that their
actions at some point in the narrative comes across as reflexive than dramatic. That
also kind of explains the director’s slow working nature (six films in two decades)
and his features' sprawling two-hour plus running time. Lee’s protagonists are very often
troubled characters; the disabled, dispirited, and ostracized individuals,
whose painful existence unmasks the callousness of modern society. Moreover,
despite the very personal and realistic examination of outcast subjects, sharp sociopolitical critique throbs beneath the surface of Lee’s works. The same
thematic preoccupations and rigorous style persists in the film-maker’s latest
offering Burning (‘Beoning’, 2018), a brilliantly orchestrated study of
contrasts at both micro (personal) and macro (social) levels.
Loosely based on Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s short
story (‘Barn Burning’), Burning opens as a meet-cute love story, then turns
into a love triangle of sorts, and before long becomes a spine-chilling mystery
that seems both easily interpretable and inexplicable. Lee opens the film in
a bustling city street with Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in), a young man moving around
while carrying some merchandise on his shoulders. Surrounded by brightly
colored advertisement boards and cacophony in the street, Jong-su meets Hae-mi
(Jeon Jong-seo), a girl from his home-town. Jong-su is the underemployed (works
part-time as deliveryman), aspiring writer son of a poor farmer. The striving
and eccentric Hae-mi, estranged from her family, works part-time doing dance
routines to attract the shoppers. She loves pantomime and showcases this love
by peeling and munching on invisible oranges before
Jong-su, who sits mouth with his agape. She remarks the trick isn’t pretending
that the mango is there, but forgetting that it isn’t. Over their reunion
drink, Hae-mi also explains the African tribe’s ritual dance of ‘little hunger’
– the physical needs – and ‘great hunger’ – a search for life’s meaning.
Lee Jong-su holds a degree in creative
writing, but usually loses himself in the discordant mixture of thoughts, and lacks the drive to focus
on particular subject for his first novel. Hae-mi is strikingly different as
she is full of stories and goes after her desires. She lives in boxy,
single-room apartment, but to satiate her ‘great hunger’ Hae-mi plans a trip
to Kenya. Soon, the two youngsters mend the loneliness and emptiness in each
other’s lives. They make tender love in Hae-mi’s little apartment, a beam of
sunlight flickering on the wall above the bed. Before going to Africa, Hae-mi
asks Jong-su to routinely feed her cat. Hae-mi says her cat ‘Boil’ is super-shy
and the only proof that a cat exists is the droppings in a litter box. But,
Jong-su dutifully visits the apartment and feeds the unseen cat. Jong-su also
handles troubles back at his family farm in Paju, a city closer to the
demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. His violent and untalkative father
is caught in a legal trouble (mother is long out of the equation).
Jong-su seems to have fallen for
Hae-mi, but she returns from her North African trip with Ben (Steven Yeun), a
wealthy socialite who drives a flashy Porsche. Hae-mi seems smitten by
Ben’s lavish display of wealth (a high-end apartment in Gagnam, worlds apart
from the dirty, impoverished Paju). Nevertheless, Hae-mi insists Jong-su to tag
along with her to fancy restaurants and sophisticated parties, which only stokes
Jong-su’s envy for Ben. What Ben does for a living remains a mystery. Accordingly,
Jong-su compares the rich man to ‘The Great Gatsby’ and the subtle tauntings of
Ben that threatens to overturn Jong-su’s love only intensifies. The imbalance
of power in this relationship between the three is starkly felt in the scene
Ben and Hae-mi visits Jong-su at his broken-down farm. Hae-mi, captivated by
the unobscured view of the orange glow of sunset, goes topless to imitate the
‘great hunger’ dance. She seems satiated one moment, but in the next moment as
the dwindling light in the sky turns dark, Hae-mi distressed by the anxieties
and sorrow in her life begins to uncontrollably sob (on hindsight, the memory of this sequence
would haunt us). She is laid to sleep and then Ben shares with Jong-su his
secret hobby of burning ‘greenhouses’. Soon after this confession, Jong-su’s
world begins to unravel as he scrabbles around to get a grip on his life’s
biggest loss.
Murakami’s thin story
is deceptively simple that’s actually a riff on William
Faulkner’s 1939 story of the same name. Director Lee Chang-dong adds meaty
layers to the story, channeling the hierarchies of privilege and class into
Jong-su’s existential angst. The slow-burn realization of the characters,
especially in the first-half, may frustrate some viewers. However, when the
element of mystery rears its head into the narrative, director Lee makes
us revisit in our mind the meaning of certain conversations and actions,
elegantly pushing us to make the links like Jong-su. The director is also
clever in the way he never provides answers to some missing links. We are
convinced about what Ben meant when he talked of ‘burning greenhouses’, but
Jong-su never confronts the guy about it. It forces us to think of the ‘there
not there’ reference Hae-mi makes in her pantomime with invisible oranges. From
the cat Jong-su feeds to the sinistral motivations we associate with Ben, the
narrative alludes to the feeling of ‘there not there’. Furthermore, director
Lee’s intricate crafting of Jong-su and Ben’s psychological dynamics plays a
pivotal role in keeping us on the edge despite easily guessing the truth behind
the central mystery.
The well-honed performances naturally smolders us with worry
and rage. Yoo as the rudderless Jong-su perfectly showcases the dread and
confusion of an emasculated individual. Newcomer Jeon earnestly captures the
yearnings of an unprivileged girl, caught between hard reality and shiny
dreams. Yeun of ‘Walking Dead’ fame effortlessly wears the cloak of arrogance
and cockiness. Doomed romances are a constant thing in Chang-dong’s movies. But
Burning boasts the most affective doomed romance of the director’s oeuvre, so
distressing that my mind kept playing the last thing Jong-su says to Hae-mi. To
better understand the mesmerizing complexity and lyricism of Lee’s aesthetics
repeat viewing is necessary (masterfully lensed by Hong Kyung-pyo). What I
especially loved about Lee’s images is the atmosphere of twilight that
oppressively hangs over after Jong-su’s (late) epiphany. By the final image, when Jong-su
sits naked inside the truck, obscured by windshield covered with snowfall, the
twilight concludes and a sort of abyss opens and the image of Hae-mi doing
the ‘great hunger’ dance becomes a distantly glowing memory. A car is burning
at some distance from the moving truck, but it only brings coolness unlike the
scorchingly hot memory of beatific Hae-mi.
Burning (148 minutes) is a discomfiting yet beautifully
rendered love triangle mystery that subtly probes into the themes of class
privilege and emasculation. Director Lee Chang-dong once again proves himself to be
master in underlining the unexpressed and unseen forces of an unforgiving society.
Trailer
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