Burning (2018): Eerie Film Noir

Burning (2018) is the kind of film that rides on a great premise: Guy meets and falls for elusive girl. He loses elusive girl to rich guy. Elusive girl disappears. Is she just following her elusive nature, or did rich guy do her in?

None of the characters but the rich guy–Ben (Steven Yeun)–are compelling. The elusive girl, Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), is annoying and so fragile. Her allure to hero Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) is more about his own desperate unhappiness than any charm.

But it’s that very lack of charm that makes Ben’s attraction to her suspect. We see him yawning during one of her sad attempts to gain attention. WHY is he with her? He is too suave, too handsome, too lucky, too cool, too mysterious to be be seduced by her.

Also, his self-confessed hobby is arson, which is not exactly innocent. But is Ben really an arsonist, is he fabricating felonies to mess with Jong-su, or is he disguising his murders in metaphors?

Jong-su is that rare hero in noir who does NOT make possible killer Ben feel the need to murder him in self-defense. There are no flamboyant public or even private accusations. Jong-su shores up clues about Hae-mi’s disappearance and Ben’s potential involvement. But he says little and deflects when Ben tries to discover what he’s up to. Jong-su is, in fact, a pretty good amateur detective.

The film does a beautiful job putting you in this detective’s place: What would you do if you suspected foul play, but couldn’t prove it? What if everyone in a missing woman’s life dismissed her (and thus would not be filling out a missing person report)? Would you keep trying? The uncertainty haunts you as you watch Jong-su’s growing desperation.

At first, it seems Burning is a bit of a misnomer. Maybe “Slow Burn” would suit it more. The film creeps up on you. In fact, it teeters on the edge of boring until Ben enters the picture. It then becomes relentlessly disquieting. While the triangle is supposedly between the woman and two men, it’s Ben and Jong-su who play a fascinating dance with one another, with Ben seemingly befriending Jong-su, far more interested in him than he ever seemed in Hae-mi–or in the woman he may be targeting next.

The question is about the nature of Ben’s interest. Is killer Ben trying to discover what Jong-su knows? Is he innocent and just curious why a man of Jong-su’s intelligence is so fascinated by this girl who intrigued him for mere minutes? Or is this all about class, Ben wondering what makes a poor man tick? (All Jong-su has are a mother who abandoned him, a father going to jail, and one cow he needs to sell.) Ben might be seeking what drives Jong-su, what story he wants to tell or live.

But Ben’s interest in Jong-su could be more sinister: a combination of all of these possibilities. Perhaps he DID kill Hae-mi, and is genuinely curious why Jong-su would care that this poor, lackluster girl would be snuffed out.

I would have liked the movie more had the time before Ben been shortened, and the time with him lengthened. I could have used a whole movie devoted to this potential villain. It doesn’t hurt that Steven Yeun owns the role. He performs so well on that edge: not quite creepy, not quite innocent, darting from judgments. Ben has all the luck–and personality–on his side the whole time, so Jong-su’s increasing frustration at his impermeability makes so much sense. This is not an equals fighting one another situation; Ben holds every card.

The film is worth the watch. After spending the whole movie wondering about the title, I walked away knowing how suitable it was. Some conclusions are reached at the movie’s end, but so much more is still tantalizingly out of reach.