Not Exactly "Burning" for This Movie

Hey there,

Let's talk about another movie!  Today, I'd like to talk about "Burning" (2018).

I was very interested to see this movie after hearing Steven Yeun do an interview about it.  I love Yeun because I loved him in Walking Dead, so his involvement was already a major selling point for "Burning".  Add to that that the movie was inspired by a short story by Haruki Murakami, which I learned from one of my much-referenced movie lists, and I was very much on board.

In premise, "Burning" feels familiar to the deeply unsettling "The Vanishing" (1988): a woman disappears without a trace, and a man romantically involved with her feverishly and relentlessly seeks answers.  I don't believe I'm the first to make the comparison between these two films, but for our purposes today, it's an important one.  Almost two decades after watching "The Vanishing", its terrifying and disturbing ending still freaks me out.  "Burning", on the other hand, fails to land that such an enduring punch.

There are aspects of "Burning" that I liked.  It is listless, haunting, and atmospheric in a memorable way.  I appreciated the introduction to the homes of Lee Jong-su, as portrayed by Ah-In Yoo, and Shin Hae-mi, as played by Jong-seo Jun.  Like the homes in the Hirokazu Kore-eda films I recently wrote about, their homes felt real and lived-in.  However, the homes in "Burning" are either so tight that it's difficult to imagine living in them or so cluttered and unkempt that it would be hard to feel fully settled in them.  Both are intentional choices that contribute to the perpetual smoldering unease of this movie.

Of course, I'm not against that feeling in a movie when it serves a fulfilling end.  Unfortunately, "Burning" doesn't scratch enough of its lingering itches to leave its audience feeling satisfied.  Instead, it spends much of its time focused on the irritable, unnervingly sexually frustrated, and until-the-very-end ineffectual Jong-su.  Of course, some of the major questions of the film could be answered by deductive logic (Is Steven Yeun's Ben a serial killer? His poorly-hidden stash of trophies proclaims a resounding, "Yeah probably.").  However, unlike in "The Vanishing", not enough of those questions are answered to serve as payoff for seeing "Burning" through to its abruptly blazing conclusion.  By its end, "Burning" left me, in contradiction of its title, cold.

I gave this one a 3.

{Heart}