“Slow and quiet thriller” may sound like a strange way to describe this haunting, cryptic Korean movie, but it feels apt. Inspired by Haruki Murakami’s short story, it’s built on ambiguity and unease, and is immensely rewarding in the end.
For the first hour or so, Burning plays like a quirky romantic drama exploring social divide in the modern South Korea. Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in) is an introverted, detached young man, dreaming of being a writer like his beloved Faulkner. One day he runs into Haemi (Jong-seo Jun), a girl he grew up with in the village outside of Seoul. Before he knows what has happened, Jongsu and Haemi have sex in her tiny apartment, and he agrees to look after Haemi’s cat while she’s away on a trip to Africa. Jongsu never sees the cat, though the eaten food and messy kitty litter allay his suspicion that Haemi is playing an elaborate joke for her own enigmatic reasons.
When Jongsu picks up Haemi at the airport, he’s dismayed to discover that she’s picked up a new beau while in Africa. Ben (Steven Yeun) is something of a Korean Jay Gatsby, confident and charismatic, with a smile that seems always on a verge of becoming a smirk. He drives a Porsche and lives in a massive, exquisitely furnished apartment. He doesn’t seem to have a profession or any obvious source of income, but he does have one unconventional hobby that he casually discloses to Jongsu, almost daring him to be shocked. Yeun was very impressive in Netflix’ recent Beef miniseries, and he steals the movie here with his unnerving portrayal of a charming sociopath.
After a certain point, the relationship between the three characters shifts into a psychological thriller that’s so slow-burn and full of ambiguities that it’s almost only recognisable as a thriller in retrospect, after the silent desperation that’s been building up for the entire movie culminates in a violent, shocking ending. This is partly because Burning never switches gears and remains the same quiet, slow-paced film it was in the first half. There are many long, uninterrupted silent stretches as we follow Jongsu around on what turns into vengeful stalking by the end of the movie.
Though the film only takes Murakami’s short story as an inspiration, shifting the action to South Korea from Japan among other things, it has the same disorienting feeling of unease and strangeness I got from Murakami’s writing, along with the dialogue that’s stilted and unnatural and yet weirdly captivating. The movie slowly fills in the missing details of Jongsu’s life: his father has rage issues and is now in trouble with the law for assaulting another farmer, his mother left when he was little. He lives in a dilapidated rural area near the border with North Korea, where the sounds of propaganda from across the divide fill the air. Throughout the film, the phone at Jongsu’s farm rings with no one on the other side. Even the brief appearance of Donald Trump on TV at Jongsu’s house feels like it was meant to disorient the viewer.
The understated but sinister score and hypnotic cinematography enhance the sense of danger that you can never quite pinpoint. There’s a mystery of just how trustworthy Haemi is as a character, and how many of her stories come from her imagination only. Speaking of Haemi, she provides what is probably the most evocative and poetic scene in the entire movie. As the trio enjoy sunset drinks at Jongsu’s farm, Haemi suddenly strips to the waist and dances while looking at the hills of North Korea, her movements beautiful and fluid, her silhouette stark against the darkening sky.
By the time the movie is over, you get some clues but no solid answers, and you’re not sure which story is worse: the one in which Jongsu’s suspicions are justified, or the one in which his mind is hopelessly clouded with feelings of jealousy, rage and class resentment. I suspect that the slow burn of Burning may not be for everyone, but I found it mesmerising, thought-provoking and open to a wide variety of interpretations.
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