Burning is blow up of anguish

There is no way to analyze Burning without making some kind of reference to Blow-Up, the revolutionary movie by Michelangelo Antonioni. Like the 1966 Italian movie, the work of South Korean Chang-dong Lee deals with a crime that may have happened. Or not. Also, a key element in the plot is pantomime.

After meeting Jongsu, a former colleague from a rural village near the border with North Korea, Haemi, who works as a dancer at a store door, does a pantomime that captures the boy's attention: by simulating the tangerine tasting, she suggests that he does not imagine that the fruit is there, just forget it is not. She says, "If you really want to eat tangerine, your mouth will salivate and taste will be great."

Haemi takes a trip to the Kalahari desert to meet the bushmen, and leaves Jongsu responsible for feeding her cat. The animal is another riddle of the film because it is never seen (or perhaps once), although it consumes the food and fills the litter box.

When she returns from Africa, Haemi is in the company of Ben, a wealthy man who lives in a large apartment, drives a Porsche and has numerous art works. In addition to jealousy, Jongsu has a perception that Ben, whom he defines as a "Gatsby" (a reference to Scott Fitzgerald's novel), is not a good person.

There is an amazing scene in which the three meet in front of the small farm of Jongsu and smoke marijuana, while Haemi dances the ritual of the Bushmen representing the Great Hunger, or know the meaning of life. Ben disdains the art of the girl and reveals to Jongsu that his pastime is to burn greenhouses of rural areas.

After this scene, the film becomes chaotic, harrowing and enigmatic. The direction is economic and the calm of the supposed villain only increases the despair. Are we seeing what we want to see and not what is real? Jongsu, overcome by doubts, begins a paranoid search for a crime that may or may not has taken place.

To paraphrase the Italian film, the ending is a blow up of anguish. The solution is unexpected, though predictable. We see something real, ablaze, happening.

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