Film: Burning (2018)

When Was the Last Time You Burned?

When you read the very short story ‘Barn Burning’ by Haruki Murakami on which Burning (2018) is based, it’s hard to fathom how Chang-dong Lee managed to adapt it into such a beautiful and haunting 2 1\2 hour film. Being a reader of a few Murakami novels myself (Killing Commendatore (2015), The Wind Up Bird Chronicle (1995) and Norwegian Wood (1987), I love how Chang-dong kept true to Murakami’s style through common characteristics in his leads, whilst also injecting an intense class anxiety and emotive sequences that strike you profoundly in unexplainable ways. What’s also interesting is the distance that Chang-dong creates at key moments in the film, to create tension and ambivalence with regards to its direction. 

It’s no coincidence that the film starts with an obscured view of Lee Jong-su (Ah-in Yu) from behind a truck container door. Chang-dong starts as he means to go on by putting physical barriers between the characters and viewers, along with connoting Jong-su’s  working class status as he takes a delivery from the back and walks it down an anonymous high street, a one take shot immersing us in a busy world that it slowly becomes clear Jong-su is not completely comfortable in. Shin Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jun) is introduced by fixing a lottery for Jong-su and through the subsequent scenes the two characters become more intimate - smoking, sharing a meal and having sex at Hae-mi’s apartment - and Chang-dong constructs depth of character adeptly.

With Jong-su, Chang-dong uses two point-of-view shots. First, as Jong-su pulls up to Hae-mi we look at her through the bus window with a physical barrier of the bus window prominent. Second, as Jong-su and Hae-mi have sex for the first time and Jong-su climax’s, we look at the wall ahead rather than at her, communicating his trouble with intimacy. Couple this with Jong-su’s intentions of being a writer and his expressions which maintain a constantly benevolent and unassuming manner throughout most of his time in the film, Chang-dong presents an introverted and likeable lead. Through Hae-mi’s physicality in her introduction as a bingo dancer and her miming, as well as her desire to travel and her initiating most situations with Jong-su, Lee constructs an extroverted and physical opposite to Jong-su, but their connection is undeniable both with their class commonality (growing up in the same area and similar current living situations) and clear affection to each other physically. Murakami is ever present within these characteristics, with spontaneous and extroverted women and unassuming lead males often being a starting point for his storytelling - think Toru/Midori in Norwegian Wood or Toru/Kasahara in The Wind Up Bird Chronicle.

As Burning progresses Hae-mi travels to Africa as Jong-su moves into his fathers rural, dilapidated home and regularly tends to her cat who he never sees (another knowing nod from Lee to Wind Up Bird Chronicle). Jong-su picks Hae-mi up from the airport where upper-class and ominous presence Ben (Steven Yeun) is introduced and a love triangle soaked in class tension begins - evident in the drive from the airport where contained shots place the three of them inside the pick-up and the viewer outside the glass. Note, as Irene Hsu and Soo Ji Lee did for Atlantic, the Americanisation of Ben’s name and his initiation of a handshake rather than the traditional bow when meeting Jong-su. Furthermore, see how Chang-dong preludes this American influenced conservatism embodied in Ben with a clip of Trump on Jong-su’s TV as he receives a call with no-one on the end of the line.

Place and possession are placed in opposition between Ben and Jong-su - Ben lives in a swanky high-rise and drives a Porsche whilst Jong-su lives in a rural house and drives an old pick-up truck - and every gathering of Ben’s friends which Jong-su is invited to he doesn’t feel comfortable in, leaving early. As Ben’s character forces its way into the story Chang-dong creates a dislikable, patronising and mysterious character. In their first real conversation for example Jong-su asks what Ben does and he says, ‘you wouldn’t understand’ and as they meet for lunch Ben reads Hae-mi’s hand gazing only at her, telling her to let go of ‘the stone in her heart,’ in other words, her affection for Jong-su. 

The real centre-piece of the film is when Ben visits Jong-su’s house with Hae-mi. There are so many things that are weaved into this sequence - Hae-mi’s subtle premonition as to her mysterious fate with the tale of falling into a well (another Wind Up Bird Chronicle reference), Jong-su and Hae-mi’s connection and affection through place, Ben’s cold and unsympathetic manner to Jong-su, as well as his jealousy of Jong-su and Hae-mi, and Ben’s admission of committing crimes that are never punished. Clearly in Ben’s burning of greenhouses and smoking weed Chang-dong is saying something about the difference of white collar crimes which are covert and go unpunished, as well as the freedom that your class can afford you, evidenced in the bewildered look on the face of Jong-su, who is barely scraping a living. 

But the true gem of this sequence comes before, when Hae-mi begins to spontaneously dance and a rare piece of non-diegetic sound in the form of jazz accompanies her with the sunset far in the distance. The dancing is mesmerising and the cinematography is beautiful. It’s an enactment of Hae-mi’s physical expression, one of her key characteristics, but also an entrenchment of her belonging to the rural world of Jong-su - she flaps her hands like a bird and embraces her natural body in a background of fields and trees. For me Chang-dong taps into something more than just characters here too and its one of those beautiful moments that films can create for us, a kind of set piece to unleash our imagination and transport us momentarily.

It turns out to be a curtain call for Hae-mi as she goes missing soon after and Jong-su spends the rest of the film trying to gather evidence that Ben is responsible. But of course, a working class resourceless Jong-su who just sold his last cow has no real chance of catching the wealthy, cold, calculated and ever more unsettling Ben. Jong-su is helplessly paraded around the evidence and Ben drips poisonous hints working up Jong-su to a captivating end. Jong-su calls Ben telling him to meet him, quite aptly in his rural environment, and arrives to stab Ben repeatedly, afterwards setting fire to him and the Porsche together, one of the main emblems of his class. 

Although he uses physical barriers throughout Burning, with the point of view shots and the focus on Jong-su throughout he clearly positions you intimately with Jong-su, but as this final scene happens Chang-dong uses a fairly static long take as the stabbing is initiated from a distance and we see Ben’s anguished look as Jong-su finishes him off coldly. The mild mannered character betrays your conceptions unexpectedly and you feel irresolute regarding Jong-is as the credits roll, which is unlike the rest of the film and adds this sense of distance Chang-dong peppers the film with. But is this final section fictional? Throughout the film Jong-su struggles with what he can write about, and after reminiscing on his love for Hae-mi at her apartment and his suspicions of Ben being involved in her disappearance he begins to type what could be the start of his first novel. In his fantasy, its highly likely Jong-su’s anger would be translated in a violent end for Ben due to his love for Hae-mi, and this is maybe why we get a shift in tone out of nowhere.

Real or fantasy though, I think Chang-dong is clearly making a statement about the horrors that utter disparity in wealth can cause and the freedom in the upper-classes compared to the anxieties with which the lower class suffer. As an aside, I didn’t think that anyone could be anywhere near as class conscious as we are in the UK, but the more and more South Korean films I watch makes me think they could give us a run for our money! I could go on about this film for a while longer but in the interest of saving you I’m going to link you to the Irene Hsu and Soo Ji Lee piece below as they evidence the class anxiety with a lot more depth and clarity than I have.          https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/11/burning-movie-imagines-working-class-anxiety-south-korea-lee-chang-dong/575773/