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Two friends from childhood who lived in a farming village near Seoul didn’t meet until adulthood. When they meet, it was purely by chance. So, they go out for drinks and catch up. The lady brings up how she has been practicing a new form of Indian dance called pantomime and gives him a snippet of her performance. As she goes on to show him her routine, he is able to visualize her pretending to eat a tangerine so well that it amuses him. She goes on to say that if he is ever starving, then he just has to picture the food he is in the mood for and he will be able to get it.
The new film from the South Korean master Lee Chang-dong delivers the message that there is something in everyone for everybody to be hungry for. The quest for this hunger and what it seeks to achieve remains open for discussion. The real problem is that this topic itself can be harmful since it jeopardizes the position of the class system. This movie serves as Lee’s debut after eight years and it is inspired by Haruki Murakami’s short story Barn Burning. The animation serves as a morose depiction of the concept of “survival of the fittest” and presents it in a shocking way that most deem brutal.
The three main characters move in a careful circle. They look at each other with longing, mistrust, and a strange kind of need that makes them question the truth of what they see. Lee’s explorations have a requirement of depth and space. It is a fine film. Deeply engrossing, suspenseful, and rather peculiar.
Jongsu (Ah-in Yoo), a man charmed by the performance, hopes to publish work of his own one day. He especially admires Faulkner. “With every story I read, Jongsu says, ‘it feels like I’m reading my own life.’This quote makes sense when we reflect on the disarray of emotions, peculiar bonds, absent personas, and jagged pieces that form Jongsu’s life. He and his dad have a rather unclear relationship. His dad, for instance, got into conflict with the law over supposedly attacking a different farmer. To make matters worse, his mother left when he was young. He is shocked when he sees Haemi (Jong-seo Jun), the girl he grew up with, tossing raffle tickets while dancing. He is taken aback: “I didn’t recognize you.” “Plastic surgery” she grinned. He is left utterly bewildered and dazed by how it all plays out. He sleeps with Haemi and casually mentions to her that he will look after her cat whilst she goes on holiday to Africa. As he drives to work on the family farm, it becomes the only thing on his mind. When the cow is fed or when the food is set out for her cat (who has not made an appearance), he is still fantasizing about Haemi. The whirling snow around his pickup truck adds to the ethereal state.
One cannot escape the conjecture that no cat exists, and that Haemi conjured one for her own purposes. What purpose though?
Jongsu assists in picking up Haemi from the airport on her return flight from Africa and is strangely displeased at finding out that there is a companion with Haemi, a companion called Ben (Steven Yeun) whom she met during her travels. The two appear to be dating. Jongsu has this uncomfortable intuition that Ben is not good at all, and that there is something profoundly “off” about him. Ben has a Porsche, does not seem to work anywhere, and has a large, nicely furnished apartment with lots of art. Jongsu says to Haemi, “There are many Gatsby’s in Korea.” If Ben is Gatsby, then that would make Jongsu Nick Carraway and Haemi Daisy. The further Jongsu gets to the core of Ben, the more he recognizes that he is dangerously empty maybe even a sociopath. (Yeun’s performance is truly chilling.) The class critique in “Burning” is as succinct as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s was, in that it takes center stage, and the tension, fury, rage make it seem like the screen is going to burst.
While Haemi is showing Ben and his friends the “hunger dance” of the Kalahari Bushmen, Jongsu can see how uncomfortable everyone appears, trying to mask their snickering. He observes Ben yawning during Haemi’s performance. Jongsu, whose gaze at Haemi is full of admiration, see her as some sort of entertainer while these clueless urban people are vacant. He is beginning to think that Haemi is possibly in some sort of trouble.
“Burning” is set in a region of blurred and ever-changing borders that can be felt but not seen. Jongsu lives in a village on the frontier of North Korea. There exists a loudspeaker blaring propaganda that splits the air on the other side of the hill and creates a sense of panic in the serene pastoral setting like an attack is about to happen as if something terrible lies behind the vista. Schrodinger’s cat, Haemi, is literally in a realm of non-existence and existence. It’s full in the litter box but never shows up. The food is gone, and so is the box. At Jongsu’s farm the phone is constantly ringing, but there is no answer. Only silence and stillness. Dead air. Repeating images and motifs creates a fractal effect. Closets are important too. Every character has a closet holding secrets and mysteries (like a shaft of light reflected, a glimmering knife, a pink plastic watch). For Haemi, heat is represented by the moment the Kalahari Bushmen swarm around the fire. Jongsu associates heat with the bonfire made of his mother’s clothes in the backyard, one of his few vivid memories from his childhood. Fires are crucial as well.
It is the greenhouses that he burns down during his free time, he makes sure to mention to Jongsu as if to bet him whether he would be shocked. “You burn down other people’s greenhouses?” queries Jongsu. Ben grins unperturbedly, and like someone smiling enigmatically, he nods.
In one remarkable episode, Ben and Haemi drive out to see Jongsu at his farm. They sit together on the patio, smoke weed, and gaze at the sunset while hearing the soft rustling of the leaves, the light increasingly becoming less bright. Haemi takes her shirt off and starts dancing, staring into above the North Korean hills while her shadow sways against the pinkish and purplish skyline. To watch her fluid movements, and primal willingness to embrace the beauty of her own experiences, Jongsu and Ben are both paralyzed in their seats. Jongsu remembers that the first time she performed the tangerine for him, she looked like that too. He had loved this side of her too. By the end of the dance, she is in tears. Ben yawns again. Jongsu now understands why Ben looks like an enthusiastic moral arsonist. There is a scary and disturbing feeling of danger, only you cannot really point where its origins are.
“Burning” seems to share this perspective.
All of Seoul has been transformed into noise, such as the movies of General Giap, traffic, street performers and the North Korean propaganda loudspeaker, there is even a Trump broadcast on the television at the side of the room. It becomes virtually impossible to focus or think rationally, it is hard to fathom how anything can be that which it appears to be. The remaining distance between ‘there is’ and ‘there isn’t’ began with Haemi’s splendid performance of the invisible tangerine pantomime, and is being actively maintained throughout. It is all too easy to be ridiculous. Alternatively… They are and that might be even more terrifying. The pantomiming tangerine is significantly delicious, but it remains invisible. It is ephemeral at best. The cat was never in the room, the doll was the tamest in the pile. There’s something dormant inside greenhouses, and it’s never going to come to life. They just sit in those empty fields waiting for a match from the arsonist.
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