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Burning, 2018
Jong-Su (Yoo Ah-in) is an aspiring writer and a bit of an odd duck. Unemployed and trying his best to deal with his father's arrest for assaulting a public servant, Jong-Su runs into an old neighbor, Hae-Mi (Jeon Jong-seo). After a whirlwind hangout and bout of sex, Hae-Mi gets Jong-Su to agree to watch her cat while she goes on vacation. But when she returns from her vacation, she's attached to Ben (Steven Yeun), a slick young man who Jong-Su begins to suspect might hide some dark secrets.
Several of Lee Chang-dong's films have been on my radar for a while (especially Poetry and Secret Sunshine), but this is the first one that I've watched. I must say, I really enjoyed it.
The film lands in a really nice place between a thriller and a character study. Like many great films that lean into the psychological aspect, it's framed with just the right degree of ambiguity that we can never totally know if the conclusions reached by the main character are sound or not, lending multiple layers of dread to the events that play out. Is Ben really a sociopath? Or does Jong-Su see that because he wants to believe that Mae-Mi's boyfriend must be evil? And, by extension, do we the audience want him to be evil because a sociopath/serial killer is more sensational than just a faux-edgy pretty boy?
There are a lot of ways that this works out in the film, and none better than the use of Hae-Mi's cat. Despite caring for the cat for two weeks, Jong-Su never sees the kitty. When we're later asked to use the appearance of a cat to drive our understanding of a situation, we have to ask: is that her cat? What does it mean if it is? And what does it mean if it isn't?
Jong-Su himself walks that same line of ambiguity. As he reacts to what he believes to be true about Hae-Mi and Ben, we cannot fully know if his actions are "right" or not. Is he a vengeful protector, or is he the sociopath? The film refuses us answers, forcing the audience to constantly walk a line of sympathy and revulsion. So many thrillers use a character who is socially isolated or an outsider: sometimes they are the hero who can see what others can't, and sometimes they are monsters.
It's kind of interesting to have watched this film right after viewing Cairo Station, another film where an outsider develops an unhealthy obsession with a woman who is not romantically interested in him, and who sometimes turns his anger about that into violence. But whereas Cairo Station was very clear about the unhealthy nature of its lead character's fixation, Burning refuses to show us any kind of absolute truth.
A really solid psychological thriller with memorable imagery and a fantastic final act.
Burning, 2018
Jong-Su (Yoo Ah-in) is an aspiring writer and a bit of an odd duck. Unemployed and trying his best to deal with his father's arrest for assaulting a public servant, Jong-Su runs into an old neighbor, Hae-Mi (Jeon Jong-seo). After a whirlwind hangout and bout of sex, Hae-Mi gets Jong-Su to agree to watch her cat while she goes on vacation. But when she returns from her vacation, she's attached to Ben (Steven Yeun), a slick young man who Jong-Su begins to suspect might hide some dark secrets.
Several of Lee Chang-dong's films have been on my radar for a while (especially Poetry and Secret Sunshine), but this is the first one that I've watched. I must say, I really enjoyed it.
The film lands in a really nice place between a thriller and a character study. Like many great films that lean into the psychological aspect, it's framed with just the right degree of ambiguity that we can never totally know if the conclusions reached by the main character are sound or not, lending multiple layers of dread to the events that play out. Is Ben really a sociopath? Or does Jong-Su see that because he wants to believe that Mae-Mi's boyfriend must be evil? And, by extension, do we the audience want him to be evil because a sociopath/serial killer is more sensational than just a faux-edgy pretty boy?
There are a lot of ways that this works out in the film, and none better than the use of Hae-Mi's cat. Despite caring for the cat for two weeks, Jong-Su never sees the kitty. When we're later asked to use the appearance of a cat to drive our understanding of a situation, we have to ask: is that her cat? What does it mean if it is? And what does it mean if it isn't?
Jong-Su himself walks that same line of ambiguity. As he reacts to what he believes to be true about Hae-Mi and Ben, we cannot fully know if his actions are "right" or not. Is he a vengeful protector, or is he the sociopath? The film refuses us answers, forcing the audience to constantly walk a line of sympathy and revulsion. So many thrillers use a character who is socially isolated or an outsider: sometimes they are the hero who can see what others can't, and sometimes they are monsters.
It's kind of interesting to have watched this film right after viewing Cairo Station, another film where an outsider develops an unhealthy obsession with a woman who is not romantically interested in him, and who sometimes turns his anger about that into violence. But whereas Cairo Station was very clear about the unhealthy nature of its lead character's fixation, Burning refuses to show us any kind of absolute truth.
A really solid psychological thriller with memorable imagery and a fantastic final act.