'Burning' (2018) Review

Written and Directed by Chang-Dong Lee, Burning is the story of Jong-su an aspiring writer and delivery worker whose life is turned on its head when he bumps into Haemi a childhood friend whom he hasn’t seen in years. They reconnect and Haemi asks Jong-Su to take care of her cat for her while she goes traveling, when she returns, it is with a friend, Ben portrayed by Steve Yeun, who turns out to be an upper-class mystery with an interesting hobby.

Lee’s use of cinematography and camerawork brilliantly bring this world to life. Slowly drip feeding the audience information while forcing them to ask questions of every character and decision in a film that is geographically big, but narratively compact. The tempo is slow but does not drag, each scene is significant, and carries its weight in building suspense throughout. Furthermore what takes place within the camera frame isn’t always what is most important. Lee choses to let the camera rest on objects, people etc. over cutting to what traditionally should be the focus, giving the audience freewill to read their own narrative into each scene. Both male leads Steven Yuen and Ah-in Yoo have muted performances, but in different ways due to the difference in their characters. Ah-in Yoo as Jong-Su is hapless, quiet and appears as if he is always out of his depth in-particular with Haemi and Ben who he is jealous of. Ben is rich, confident, and popular appearing to casually glide through life with no worries, the polar opposite of Jong-Su. Both muted performances compliment Jong-Seo’s animated, but confusing performance as Haemi. Coming across as a ditsy but layered performance implies that there is more than meets the eye with Haemi.

The psychological suspense holds your attention until the credits roll. With themes of division in class and social status, desire and love. Burning is relatable, gentle, but also menacing. It feels like a world that is striving to appear normal, but barely holding it together. Jong-Su is our insight into this world; he doesn’t understand it and neither do we, we learn as he learns, and even by the end of the film we know so little. It is a triumph in suspense filmmaking, putting a fresh take on the thriller genre, playing tropes you know against you, as you try and guess where it's going and what it's doing. Even after the credits roll, you’ll still be asking the same questions in a narrative—not finished, yet satisfying.