Burning

Go in with no expectations, except that it is a slow-paced simple story, told in an epic fashion with wonderful cinematography and understated acting.
It got under my skin like few movies do, a story about class, jealousy, ego, desire, dreams, etc. Best movie of the year, possibly.

This movie is a generational manifesto. A boy that loves a girl; the girl loves a richer boy; the richer boy has no moral values. In this chain, the plot unfolds and the characters' personalities develop to became extremely complex. That's why this is a manifesto for 90-00's generation: they live of contraddictions between their first-world issues (to be in the forgotten middle-low class, to be too rich, to have a father in prison, and so on...) and their desire to dance, to sing, to love, to be free. Some can get past these contraddictions, but others tend to became sociopaths, like Jong-su. Chang-dong Lee creates contrasts with these complexities, playing with beautiful scenarios (the frame with the three characters sitting together and staring at the twilight, seen from their backs, is wonderful) and political references (we see and hear Trump talking about the (in)famous "wall", and Jong-su's house is near the North Korean border, from which we can hear messages of propaganda).
This movie shines a light on young people, their mind and their feeling of inadequacy, and it does that majestically.
8.5/10

This is a movie for people who want to get inside of a movie and roll around inside of it. For days. The movie itself is a slow burn (sorry for the pun) and the ending won't be for everyone. If you enjoy a movie that makes you think and research for days in order to appreciate all that you saw (and didn't see) this movie is for you.

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A slow-burning mystery about economics, class, and sexual jealousy. And cats.

In his first film in eight years, writer/director Lee Chang-dong (Oasis; Secret Sunshine; Poetry) begins this protean narrative as an almost John Hughes-esque teen romance, before shifting gears into a story of sexual and economic jealousy, then morphing into the tale of a pseudo-film noir amateur sleuth, before finally allowing itself to visit the thriller territory that has lurked just outside the frame since the opening few scenes. Essentially, it's a psychological drama about three people. Although, it's possible that only one of those people is real. There are also two cats. Or maybe only one cat. It's a long journey (148 minutes), and, for some, the payoff will not be worth the length of time taken to get there. Others, more used to concrete black-and-white yes-and-no narratives, will be unimpressed with how steadfastly the film refuses to yield its secrets. For myself, it's a two-and-a-half-hour movie with only three characters of which to speak (real or not) that is intimately tied to a milieu I'm completely unfamiliar with, yet it managed to hold my attention for almost the entire time. It has an undeniable ability to burrow under your skin very early on, so even though in the first two hours, there are literally only two major plot points, I was fully invested. And, man alive, is it tense. Lee's mastery of tone is quite something, keeping the viewer off-balance from the get-go, bestowing portentous significance upon the most inanimate and innocent of objects, only to later reveal that whilst we were trying to figure out the importance of item a, we missed the significance of item b. And although in the last half-hour, I did start to fidget a little, I thought the ending was wonderfully ambiguous (albeit, just a tad predictable).

For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/DoHpn

A slow burn Burning. Mystifying, intimate, mysterious.

Just watched it, can't stop thinking about it.
I don't know, I think I loved this movie.

Burning is a meticulous thesis on the inevitable subjectivity of human experience and an insatiable 'great hunger'. Our need for answers so powerful that we might not pretend there is an answer but, forget that there isn't one.

"Burning" is a movie that shows how people from different backgrounds can feel disconnected from each other. It follows Jong-su, who feels left out because he's not as wealthy as Ben, a mysterious man Hae-mi meets. The film explores how Jong-su's growing fixation on Hae-mi and distrust of Ben lead to intense emotions and complicated relationships, showing the impact of social status on personal connections.

Wasn't crazy about this. Once again I've been burned by the promise of a "crazy ending." Never believe what you read. Good movie. Gland I saw it. But won't watch again.

An entire film where the actors read between the lines a story made only of things left unsaid. Majestic.