Burning

An amazingly graceful Korean story, exciting the viewer's attention and not letting go until the end. The film isn't for a wide audience, lasts 2 and a half hours, it goes slowly and asks a lot of questions. But the plot is built correctly, so that the viewer can understand the characters and start thinking about the questions that have arisen. The independent film seems to be divided into 2 parts: the first tells the story of a love triangle, and the second goes to a fascinating detective thriller. Director Lee Chang-dong wonderfully plays with the viewers' imagination who are trying to understand the thoughts of the main characters and their intentions. I liked very much the juxtaposition of the main characters - the writer Lee Jong-soo, who cannot see the hidden meaning and thus awakens a strong hunger inside himself, which doesn't allow him to sleep and to enjoy a life, to create; his opponent, Ben, a kind of rich Gatsby, quite the opposite one, he is filled with inspiration and understands the true beauty of all things, thus filling himself and everyone around him with a mysterious special flame. The narration is slow, during this time you can fully enjoy the visual component, excellent camera work. Scene setting, editing, actors' play - everything works for the picture and its success. No wonder that the film won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

"Burning," to stick with the heat metaphor, builds itself to a low simmer and gradually turns up the heat until the whole thing boils over in the film's last moments. But I'd be lying if I said the movie didn't risk losing me along the way.

If you can't handle enigmas, stay away from this film, because that's all it is. It's fascinating to a point, and I enjoyed its refusal to easily hand over its secrets to its audience. In fact, many of the questions the film poses don't get answered at all, or at least you have to make up your own answer if you want the satisfaction of closure. It's stylish too, I'll give it that. But it's also very slow and languorous, almost too much so, and it ultimately feels like the pay off isn't quite worth the time invested.

Grade: B+

Burning is an excellent psychological thriller with the veil of mystery around it. The movie that intrigues you and leaves you with a lot of questions to ask yourself why and to give it a try to connect the small pieces of mosaic. The more you think about the story and dialogs more questions starts to go on surface. Many of them don't have definite answer. It leaves a lot of space for imagination and analysis. It is a great study of characters. Atmosphere in the movie is dark with a lot of suspense. Acting and direction was on the spot. But the story is the one that is really unique. I haven't read the short story of Murakami ,,Burning Barn'', but now I am more than interested. I think that the movie is worth watching more times in order to catch all the small details that you maybe missed when you watched first time.Recommended for the people with more time,patience and with the tendency to analyze.

Wow. Didn't do it for me. Characters were bland. Story was bland. Pacing was plodding and slow. I know I'm going against the grain here, but something definitely went over my head.

I found this to be perhaps the most suspenseful film of the year so far. That suspense is not the usual type found in regular horror or thriller films, but it instead comes from the atmosphere and pacing of the film that hints at darker truths and ambiguities. Technically this is superbly done, with the cinematography and score standing out in particular. Although it's the lead actor who has to do all of the heavy lifting, it is Steven Yeun's performance that leaves the most impact. He's practically an enigma throughout the whole thing, and leaves so much open to interpretation and perception that it's not an easy role at all.