Facebook Twitter Instagram
    Latest
    • 3627. I Believe In Miracles (2015)
    • 3626. The Man With One Red Shoe (1985)
    • 3625. Ode To Joy (2019)
    • 3624. One Chance (2013)
    • 3623. Falling For Figaro (2020)
    • 3622. The Polka King (2017)
    • 3621. Spies In Disguise (2019)
    • 3620. Friendzone (2021)
    The Mad Movie Man
    • Home
    • Blog
      • All Posts
      • Best Of The Year
        • Best Of 2015
        • Best Of 2016
        • Best Of 2017
        • Best Of 2018
        • Best Of 2019
        • Best Of 2020
        • Best Of 2021
        • Best Of 2022
      • The Decade In Review
      • Box Office Analysis
      • James Bond
      • Oscars
      • RANKED
      • Star Wars
      • The Big Questions
      • Top 10
      • World Cinema
    • Ratings
      • Top 250
      • Top 100 Foreign Films
      • Bottom 50
      • 0 – 1.9
      • 2 – 3.9
      • 4 – 5.9
      • 6 – 7.9
      • 8 – 10
    • Genres
      • Action
      • Anthology
      • Animation
      • Christmas
      • Comedy
      • Crime
      • Documentary
      • Drama
      • Fantasy
      • Film-Noir
      • History
      • Horror
      • Kids’
      • Musical
      • Psychological
      • Romance
      • Sci-Fi
      • Short
      • Silent
      • Sport
      • Superhero
      • Survival
      • Thriller
      • Western
    • Release Year
      • 2020s
      • 2010s
      • 2000s
      • 1990s
      • 1980s
      • 1970s
      • 1960s
      • 1950s
      • 1940s
      • 1930s
      • 1920s
    • Country
      • Afghanistan
      • Argentina
      • Australia
      • Austria
      • Belgium
      • Brazil
      • Cambodia
      • Canada
      • Chile
      • China
      • Colombia
      • Costa Rica
      • Czechoslovakia
      • Czech Republic
      • Denmark
      • East Timor
      • Faroe Islands
      • Finland
      • France
      • Germany
      • Georgia
      • Greece
      • Hong Kong
      • Hungary
      • Iceland
      • India
      • Indonesia
      • Iran
      • Iraq
      • Ireland
      • Israel
      • Italy
      • Japan
      • Latvia
      • Lebanon
      • Laos
      • Malaysia
      • Mexico
      • New Zealand
      • Nigeria
      • North Korea
      • Norway
      • Paraguay
      • Peru
      • Philippines
      • Poland
      • Romania
      • Russia
      • Saudi Arabia
      • Singapore
      • South Korea
      • South Africa
      • Soviet Union
      • Spain
      • Sweden
      • Switzerland
      • Syria
      • Taiwan
      • Thailand
      • Turkey
      • Uganda
      • United Kingdom
      • United States
      • Uruguay
      • Vietnam
      • Zambia
    • About
    The Mad Movie Man
    You are at:Home»Review»2543. Burning (버닝) (2018)

    2543. Burning (버닝) (2018)

    0
    By The Mad Movie Man on May 5, 2019 140-149 mins, 2018, 6 - 7.9, Drama, May 19, Movies Of 2019, Review, Romance, South Korea
    7.3 Intriguing, but not mesmerising
    • Acting 7.4
    • Directing 7.4
    • Story 7.2
    • User Ratings (0 Votes) 0

    Starring: Yoo Ah-in, Jeon Jong-seo, Steven Yeun

    Director: Lee Chang-dong

    Running Time: 148 mins


    Burning is a South Korean film about a man who, after unexpectedly reuniting with a childhood acquaintance, is introduced to a mysterious friend of hers, whose strange tendencies leave his own life on edge.

    Having received highly enthusiastic acclaim the world over, you’d think that Burning is pretty much a flawless film. However, while it certainly offers up an intriguing and often even darkly unsettling two and a half hours of viewing, it’s far from the most mesmerising drama of recent years, suffering with an undoubtedly overlong runtime, sluggish pacing and some thematic misjudgments, all of which mean that, despite its core intrigue, it proves a frustratingly exhausting watch throughout.

    But let’s start on the bright side, with that main dramatic intrigue. I can’t say that Burning is a narratively perfect film, but what I can say is that it gets its core atmosphere spot on throughout. That is to say that in its intentions to craft something both ambiguous and unsettling, it does a great job, and despite the frustratingly sluggish pacing, director Lee Chang-dong is bold enough to push his story in darker places than you would imagine at first glance, which come about seamlessly as a result of that unnerving atmosphere from the start.

    The story splinters and changes focus throughout, but the core of the narrative – particularly in the first two acts – is the awkward love triangle that appears between the three leads, Jong-su, Ben and Hae-mi. Now, you’ve seen love triangles a million times before, but the one thing that proves really striking in Burning is how it uses a time-old narrative formula to manoeuvre the story towards more unexpected places, reminiscent of how David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive starts off in such orthodox fashion, only to move to something totally different come the end of the movie.

    And to a certain extent, there is a lot of Lynch to be seen in this film. While it’s certainly a lot more grounded than Lynch’s most daring work, Burning’s greatest intrigue comes in the dramatic ambiguity crafted so well by the unsettling atmosphere, and even though I can’t say that the pay off is quite so spectacular in the end, it does at least engage and intrigue you from the start.

    However, while Burning is definitely bold with its ambiguous story, it’s also heavily flawed in its attempts to tell it. The transition from love triangle focus to something stranger is impressive, but what comes about in the end doesn’t really tie up all too well, or bring about something even more striking to make you not even care.

    Again, that’s the thing with Mulholland Drive, and while I’m certainly not its greatest defender, the final act of the movie is so far out that it makes you completely forget what’s come before. Burning, on the other hand, while bringing about something more unsettling later on, just isn’t enough to really grab you, and instead loses out on that big and bold gamble.

    As a result, I found myself really trying to make something of the latter stages’ increasingly tenuous links with what’s come before, inevitably to no avail. And that’s a shame, because if this movie did take a slightly more orthodox and grounded approach to its story, there would have been some really interesting drama right up to the finish.

    The clearest example of that is how the film handles the theme of the socio-economic divide. South Korea, like most developed countries, has significant wealth disparity, and that’s borne out in the contrast between Ben, a wealthy, player-esque individual whose bizarre hobby amounts to effective debauchery, and Jong-su, a humbler, weaker person from a poorer background, whose hopes are repeatedly overrun by Ben’s actions.

    That, for me, was the most interesting part of the film’s latter stages, yet it’s definitely not the main narrative focus, which makes for really frustrating watching, particularly when the story moves at such a slow pace that there is definitely time to give a little more attention to that side of the story.

    And there enlies my final problem with the movie. Slow pacing doesn’t automatically make a movie boring or frustrating, but there has to be something else bubbling under the surface when a film is taking so long at such a slow pace. Look at the Dardennes’ Two Days, One Night, or even the recent Paraguayan drama The Heiresses, and you’ll see just how effective a slow pace can be in furthering dramatic power.

    Burning, on the other hand, just feels like it’s slow and long for the sake of it. Taking well over 45 minutes for the opening act to really even kick into gear, and the slogging along over the course of the remaining 100 minutes in increasingly empty fashion, the movie just doesn’t have the depth to keep you fully engrossed all the way through, and that’s what ultimately made it such a frustrating watch for me.

    Overall, I was a little disappointed by Burning. Its reputation perhaps lifted my expectations a little too high, but it still just didn’t have the consistency or depth over its entire runtime to really keep me enthralled. It has some great dramatic intrigue early on, and its bold style certainly makes for an engrossing and unsettling watch at times, but it fails to capitalise on its best ideas and themes, instead proving a frustrating watch with an excessively slow pace and an often misfocused narrative, and that’s why I’m giving it a 7.3.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    The Mad Movie Man
    • Website
    • Facebook
    • Twitter

    The Mad Movie Man, AKA Anthony Cullen, writes articles and reviews about movies and the world of cinema. Since January 1st, 2013, he has watched and reviewed a movie every day. This is the blog dedicated to the project: www.madmovieman.com

    Related Posts

    7.1

    3627. I Believe In Miracles (2015)

    5.8

    3626. The Man With One Red Shoe (1985)

    7.9

    3625. Ode To Joy (2019)

    Follow Me Online!
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
    • Tumblr
    New Releases
    5.3
    January 17, 2022

    3620. Friendzone (2021)

    7.1
    January 10, 2022

    3612. The Lost Daughter (2021)

    8.0
    January 7, 2022

    3609. Licorice Pizza (2021)

    7.2
    January 7, 2022

    3608. Lamb (2021)

    7.4
    December 30, 2021

    3599. The King’s Man (2021)

    6.3
    December 29, 2021

    3598. The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

    8.4
    December 28, 2021

    3597. West Side Story (2021)

    6.3
    December 27, 2021

    3596. Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)

    Recommended Movies
    8.1
    Review
    August 18, 20140

    661. Shrek 2 (2004)

    8.1
    Review
    July 19, 20140

    628. Dial M For Murder (1954)

    8.0
    Review
    February 25, 20150

    869. The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie (2004)

    8.6
    Review
    September 18, 20190

    2685. Girl Walk // All Day (2011)

    8.0
    Review
    August 19, 20150

    1062. Clue (1985)

    Popular Posts
    7.1
    January 24, 2022

    3627. I Believe In Miracles (2015)

    5.8
    January 23, 2022

    3626. The Man With One Red Shoe (1985)

    7.9
    January 22, 2022

    3625. Ode To Joy (2019)

    7.4
    January 21, 2022

    3624. One Chance (2013)

    6.3
    January 20, 2022

    3623. Falling For Figaro (2020)

    7.5
    January 19, 2022

    3622. The Polka King (2017)

    6.0
    January 18, 2022

    3621. Spies In Disguise (2019)

    © 2022 ThemeSphere. Designed by ThemeSphere.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.