Marsh Film Club - Burning (2018) [Entry #3 / May 2019]

No, no.... I think he's rich, he's bored, and he works his way through a succession of girlfriends and just basically casts them aside when he gets bored with them; I honestly don't think he killed anyone at all, it's just that's what Jong-Su (and you guys!!!) want to think because you're being provided with incomplete evidence. Remember pantomime. You gotta want it.
I think "burning greenhouses" could be a metaphor for how he goes through girlfriends.

Interesting take and I was not entirely convinced Ben kills the women, but I think it's the interpretation that has the most supporting evidence. Then again, like someone in the comments on that Reddit post said, our information is filtered through the lens of Jong-su, a country bumpkin who is clearly jealous of Ben.

I think I'll firmly stand on the "Ben kills the girls" side of this. While it's a totally valid point that we are seeing this through our country bumpkin's perspective, I never saw anything that made his out to be an unreliable perspective.
And I do think there should be stock taken into Ben's quick bit about having never cried. The way he talks about how fascinating it is to watch other people cry and his general, obvious high intelligence indicate to me that he may be a sociopath.
Not to mention that from the night Hae-mi disappears, he seems like he keeps leading and teasing Jong-su. Like a "do you get what I'm saying" or "whatcha gonna do about it" kind of tease.

Still, it's a fun thought experiment to try and run through the film in my head to see where Ben could be entirely innocent.

So I have to admit, I haven't rewatched this film as it felt too soon, but I do remember it well and I have done all the other further viewing/reading that I'd set...

But yeah, when I'm watching an ambiguous film, I tend to take an Occam's razor approach to how I think about the plot. Ben was a serial killer. The story he told about 'burning greenhouses' was a metaphor for killing women. The way he talks about getting an 'urge' to burn greenhouses was closely aligned to the psychology of serial killers getting an urge to kill. He's never burned a greenhouse in his life, and this is supported by the fact that none of the greenhouses near Jong-su are damaged. Ben confides in Jong-su by using an ambiguous metaphor just to fuck with him. He's a sadist and thrives on this sort of thing. In every Lee Chang-dong film there's something incredibly tragic that happens, and in this case, it was the murder of Hae-mi.

I didn't really agree with the Reddit analysis that tao posted. While there were some interesting and credible points raised, it reminded me too much of a high school English literature teacher overanalysing every detail. I know some people enjoy this kind of reading but I personally avoid it.

For anyone interested in how this compares to the Murakami short story, the skeleton of the plot is similar to Burning but there's a lot more background to the characters in Burning and there's no violent confrontation at the end of the short story. The link between the burning of barns/greenhouses and the murders is less overt in the short story too. It's a 15 minute read and I'd really recommend it to anyone who hasn't yet discovered Murakami.

A few thoughts on the film from me. I absolutely loved it and gave it a 5/5. Like other reviewers have mentioned, the first hour and a half felt a little slow and aimless for me at first, but the pay off in the second half was exceptional and I wished I'd been playing closer attention when I realised where it was going. I loved the look of the film, particularly the lighting of the scenes at dusk and dawn. I thought the quote Andrew used in his review about the intangible Lynchian vibe of dread was interesting. I also got a Murakami-esque vibe from it too - and not just because it was based on one of his short stories - but because of the focus on an introverted main character whose normal mundane routine is interrupted by extraordinary events. There were other elements of the film which felt like nods to Murakami too which weren't in the short story - particularly the featuring of a cat sub plot and the nature of the relationship between the protagonist and the female character.

Looking forward to rewatching this at some point in the next few years.

lol, I don't in any way endorse Reddit as a trustworthy source; I found the differing viewpoint interesting; I did start reading IQ84 from Murakami years ago, but lost interest, mainly because IIRC it's over 1,000 pages long...

I thought he assaulted a government official like a land surveyor?

"His father faces trial for assaulting a local government official, leaving Jong-su with the neglected family house and a diminished cattle farm."
From this article: www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/11/burning-movie-imagines-working-class-anxiety-south-korea-lee-chang-dong/575773/

I think the film could have done without those scenes in the court, though, especially since that plot thread doesn't really go anywhere.

Actually just thought of something for the Ben is innocent argument: when he shows up in the final scene, he sounds more inquisitive than sarcastic about Jong-su's request to come meet with him and Hae-mi. I think he was legit surprised by all of that.