Burning
South Korean director and former government culture and tourism minister Lee Chang-dong scored major international kudos with this tense, cryptic and highly atmospheric thriller. Expanded from Haruki Murakami’s short story BARN BURNING, with nods to the William Faulkner story of the same name, the film dissects a tortuous love triangle between aspiring writer Jong-su (Ah-in Yoo), his former childhood crush Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jeoun), and her sociopathic playboy lover, Ben (Steven Yeun). Lee’s nerve-jangling study in suspense and unspoken class warfare won multiple festival prizes and became the first South Korean film ever to be shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, Jeon Jong-seo
- Notes From Lukas DhontThe puzzling power of ambiguity. There is poetry and mystery to BURNING that allows our imagination to run free. A longing for something beyond reach. An imagining very connected to the art of cinema itself. And an invitation to look again. It is about the creation of other worlds, and those who disappear within them.
