Burning

Dir: Lee Chang-dong

2018

*****

It is fair to say that I was sold on the film as soon as I heard that it was a Lee Chang-dong adaption of a Haruki Murakami story. Japanese broadcaster NHK, which owns the rights to Murakami work, approached Lee Chang-dong and asked that he’s pick any Haruki Murakami story he wanted and to adapt it as he saw fit. I believe there were a few disputes between Murakami and NHK but in my opinion, Chang-dong absolutely captures the mood and essence of the author’s style. Chang-dong decided to adapt the short story Barn Burning from Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes – a collection of short stories. The film itself could be called The Slow-Burning as it slowly lures the viewer in, building up the characters but without giving away any of the mystery. It’s an absorbing work of psychological unease, there are scattered clues along the way but this certainly isn’t Agatha Christie, it is pure Murakami from start to finish and exactly what I see when I read his novels. The story’s protagonist is an aspiring young novelist called Lee Jong-su (played by Yoo Ah-in). He’s shy, quiet and somewhat awkward but we soon understand that he’s more of a thinker than a speaker but is certainly brighter than he often appears. After finishing university he find himself working odd jobs in Paju. One day he runs into Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), a childhood neighbor and classmate whom he does not remember at first. She is working as a promotions girl, dancing in a mini-skirt outside a busy supermarket. When she realises he doesn’t quite remember her she tells him she had plastic surgery. Later, as they have dinner together, she tells him about her upcoming trip to Africa, and asks him to feed her cat, Boil (named so because he was found in the boiler room of her building), while she is away. Jong-su's father, a cattle farmer, is in prison awaiting trial for assaulting an officer over legal affairs, and Jong-su has to return to the farm he grew up on but he agrees to travel to her apartment every day to feed her cat none the less. Jong-su meets Hae-mi' at her apartment, where she gives him instructions about feeding the cat, who remains unseen. Unexpected to Jong-su, Hae-mi seems to have lured him there for sex and the two copulate for the rest of the afternoon. After Hae-mi departs, Jong-su dutifully feeds her cat, although he never sees it. He does, however, know that a cat is there because he finds feces in the cat's litter box. He also begins habitually masturbating in her apartment, looking out of her window as he does, thinking about the intimate afternoon they spent together. One day Hae-mi calls, saying she had become stranded at Nairobi Airport for three days after a terror warning. When Jong-su comes to pick her up from the airport, she arrives with Ben (Steven Yeun), whom she met and bonded with during the crisis. The three go out for dinner, where Hae-mi recalls a sunset she witnessed during her travels. Moved by the memory, she cries and confesses that she wanted to disappear. Ben is well-off and confident, though it is never entirely clear what he does for a living. Jong-su, struggling to get by and taking care of his family farm while his father is in prison, envies Ben and his relationship with Hae-mi from afar. Hanging out at Jong-su's farm, Hae-mi recalls a childhood memory wherein Jong-su rescued her after she fell into a well near her home, which Jong-su does not remember. The trio smoke cannabis and Hae-mi dances topless in a rather trippy scene that feels like a tribute from Lee Chang-dong to European cinema. After Hae-mi falls asleep on the sofa, Ben confesses a strange hobby. Every two months, he burns an abandoned greenhouse. He notes that Jong-su's rural neighborhood is full of greenhouses. When asked when his next burning will take place, Ben claims it will be very soon and close to Jong-su's house. Jong-su tells Ben that he loves Hae-mi, but later berates Hae-mi for disrobing in front of other men. Hae-mi quietly gets into Ben's car and as they leave Jong-su tells Ben he will keep an eye on the greenhouses in his area. Over the following days, Jong-su keeps watch around the neighborhood to see if any greenhouses burn down, but none do. One afternoon, in front of an intact greenhouse that he happens to be inspecting he receives a call from Hae-mi, which cuts off after a few seconds of ambiguous noises. Jong-su becomes worried as she does not answer any of his calls afterwards, and begins to investigate after her phone number becomes disconnected. Eventually he convinces the landlady to let him into Hae-mi's apartment so that he can feed her cat. Hae-mi's apartment is unnaturally clean, her pink suitcase remains but all signs of the cat are gone. Jong-su begins stalking Ben, staking out his apartment and following him to see where he goes. When he sees Ben's Porsche parked outside a restaurant he goes inside to confront him. A young woman suddenly approaches the table, apologizing to Ben for being late. As the three of them leave the restaurant, Jong-su asks Ben if he has heard from Hae-mi and whether she had gone on a trip. Ben says he has not heard from her, and he doubts she had gone on a trip. One day, Ben finds Jong-su outside his place and invites him up to his apartment, where he finds that he has a new cat which he claims is a rescued stray. Jong-su's suspicions are raised further when on a visit to the toilet he finds a watch, similar to the one he had given Hae-mi, hidden in a drawer containing other pieces of women’s jewelry. Shortly afterwards, Ben's cat runs out of the apartment and Jong-su finds that it answers to "Boil", the same name as Hae-mi's cat. Jong-su asks to meet Ben in the countryside, claiming he is with Hae-mi. After Ben sees that Hae-mi is not there, Jong-su stabs Ben several times, killing him. Jong-su douses Ben's car and body in gasoline and sets it all aflame, tossing his blood-soaked clothes in as well. He stumbles naked to his truck and drives off. It’s a rather enigmatic affair and much of the mystery is unanswered, but then that really isn’t the point. It is intentionally ambiguous and it is about the bigger picture, the one where we are all still looking for answers. Life doesn’t always have the answers but as Hae-mi says in her pantomime, Once you convince yourself something's there, it's hard to believe that it's not. I think that is where Murakami was coming from, via William Faulkner's 1939 story "Barn Burning" and of course The Great Gatsby. Indeed, Lee Chang-Dong described the film as "the story of a young Faulkner living in the Murakami world." The film is mysterious but it really tells you all you need to know, especially in lines such as "the gaping holes in the chain of events, the missing piece from which we can never know the truth, alludes to the mysterious world we live in now; the world in which we sense that something is wrong but cannot quite put a finger on what the problem is". It’s clearly a personal story to Murakami, as our protagonist is a writer and the film is both a tribute to two of his biggest inspirations; Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I’m glad Lee Chang-Dong respected this, but then it is probably one of the reasons he himself loved it in the first place. Each character gives the audience something to ponder and even in the most ordinary scenes, a fleeting character can give an insight to the mysteries of the universe and the faults of mankind. This is what happens when two great artists collide, Burning is utterly absorbing and is a modern day masterpiece.