TELESCOPE
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Burning(버닝)
Korea
•2018
2h 28m
Director Lee Chang-dong
Starring Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, Jun Jong-seo, Kim Soo-kyung
Genre Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Jongsu, a quiet delivery boy and aspiring writer, is unemployed and living alone when he runs into Haemi, an eccentric girl who once lived in his neighborhood. He agrees to watch her cat while she goes to Africa, and when she returns with an enigmatic young man she befriended abroad, Jongsu's simple and solitary life is upended.
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WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING?
Burning is an encompassing and enigmatic film that takes a novelistic approach to the narrative. It's nontraditional, but all the more interesting for its refusal to conform to any particular formula. No pun intended, this film is a slow burn well worth the watch.
This film is a captivating adaptation of Murakami's "Barn Burning." Steven Yeun is great and charismatic. Cool to see him do a role in Korean. The visuals are very beautiful, especially when they are sitting outside Jongsu's house with the jazz music in the background. The tone is handled really well because the film feels slightly off throughout but it is hard to understand why until the end.
BURNING is incredibly subtle in its seduction. The slow pace builds tension in the viewer, who can sense that something is not quite right but is left without a tangible reason why. Hae-mi is the film’s enigmatic empty center, and her interactions with the two love interests, complete foils of one another, drive the mystery forward.
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WHAT ARE CRITICS SAYING?
The A.V. Club by A.A. Dowd
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Emily Yoshida
IndieWire by Eric Kohn
Los Angeles Times by Justin Chang
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Variety by Peter Debruge
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
Screen International by Tim Grierson
The Telegraph by Tim Robey
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy