Burning
걸작 (geoljag)
What a complete movie this is, director Chang-dong Lee just approached so many aspects: loneliness, abandonment, anger, betrayal, class struggle, inequality, jealousy, death and so many more that I didn’t notice.
Class struggle This movie is primarily about class struggle in my opinion, it is the conflict between Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) the poor boy with family issues, that has a writing degree but is never seen to work on it, and Ben (Steve Yeun) the rich privilege boy with no apparent job. The movie also contains a third part in this story Shin Hae-mi (Jun Jong-seo) which although in the same class as Lee is a link between the three characters.
FamilyBut this movie brings so many branches to its original premise, the consequences of the class struggle create many other conflicts between the characters, in instance the difference in family, at the same time that Lee has a convicted father and absent mother and sister (which we don’t even see), and Shin has a distant mother and sister, Ben has normal interactions with his family such as dinners.
Social LifeOther notice thing is the social contrast among its personas, Lee has a simple life, at the start we see him working a bit and in the rest of the movie he almost only do what Shin is inviting him to do; Shin is seen working and traveling but we never see she doing something interesting if not with Ben; Ben is the only one which we see not only having social interactions but also having friends.
Disappearance and DeathThe disappearance of Shin and the death of Ben its just metaphors in my opinion, the first one is probably to show the difference in reaction to Lee and Ben and the death is a consequence of the reactions. Lee though that Ben “disappeared” Shin but I don’t think so, it is just a huge overreaction (but maybe I am wrong).
My opinionThis movie is a masterpiece and everyone should see, I may be wrong in my analysis and I am sure this movie has much more to say than the much I have said, this was just my reaction seeing and thinking about this movie.