|
Post by Martin Stett on May 23, 2019 20:55:09 GMT
Well, that was bad. I don't care if this is making some (blatant) commentary on class politics. I don't care that the ending is "ambiguous." I care that the lead has Asa Butterfield levels of personality. I care that Hae-Mi is an offensive MPDG trope and that the movie doesn't attempt to explore how the protagonist sees her. I care that the movie spends a whole damn hour focusing on mundanity instead of getting into the plot.
This isn't quite as bad as Lee's Secret Sunshine. But it is still bad. Very bad.
|
|
|
Post by Tommen_Saperstein on May 23, 2019 22:39:01 GMT
Well, that was bad. I don't care if this is making some (blatant) commentary on class politics. I don't care that the ending is "ambiguous." I care that the lead has Asa Butterfield levels of personality. I care that Hae-Mi is an offensive MPDG trope and that the movie doesn't attempt to explore how the protagonist sees her. I care that the movie spends a whole damn hour focusing on mundanity instead of getting into the plot.This isn't quite as bad as Lee's Secret Sunshine. But it is still bad. Very bad. So obviously I disagree with literally everything you wrote, but personally I appreciate that the film took its time to set up the characters and especially the protagonist's relationship with Hae-Mi because it makes you really feel her absence in the second act as she grows closer to Ben and starts fading into the background and then just disappears completely. And the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that people who apply the "MPDG" critique to Hae-Mi's character totally missed the point that the film really has nothing to do with her and everything to do with the protagonist's crisis of masculinity. Class politics is there for sure but I think the film is much more about how masculinity is defined by social and financial status (which ties into the class subtext) and sexual conquest, and the mental chaos which ensues when external forces threaten that delicate system. And because the film is a first-person narrative from an unreliable narrator, the film not developing Hae-Mi beyond MPDG tropes is the key to understanding how Lee Chang-dong is stripping bare the artifice of class and sex-obsessed masculinity, which in my opinion is a testament to his brilliance and scope. I'm sorry to see more people haven't gotten onboard with what Lee was doing here because Burning is one of the most powerful and disturbing films of the decade.
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 24, 2019 3:14:09 GMT
Well, that was bad. I don't care if this is making some (blatant) commentary on class politics. I don't care that the ending is "ambiguous." I care that the lead has Asa Butterfield levels of personality. I care that Hae-Mi is an offensive MPDG trope and that the movie doesn't attempt to explore how the protagonist sees her. I care that the movie spends a whole damn hour focusing on mundanity instead of getting into the plot.This isn't quite as bad as Lee's Secret Sunshine. But it is still bad. Very bad. So obviously I disagree with literally everything you wrote, but personally I appreciate that the film took its time to set up the characters and especially the protagonist's relationship with Hae-Mi because it makes you really feel her absence in the second act as she grows closer to Ben and starts fading into the background and then just disappears completely. And the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that people who apply the "MPDG" critique to Hae-Mi's character totally missed the point that the film really has nothing to do with her and everything to do with the protagonist's crisis of masculinity. Class politics is there for sure but I think the film is much more about how masculinity is defined by social and financial status (which ties into the class subtext) and sexual conquest, and the mental chaos which ensues when external forces threaten that delicate system. And because the film is a first-person narrative from an unreliable narrator, the film not developing Hae-Mi beyond MPDG tropes is the key to understanding how Lee Chang-dong is stripping bare the artifice of class and sex-obsessed masculinity, which in my opinion is a testament to his brilliance and scope. I'm sorry to see more people haven't gotten onboard with what Lee was doing here because Burning is one of the most powerful and disturbing films of the decade. I can see this argument, but I can't get behind it. My reasoning being that defining a character entirely by a protagonist's view of that character only works if we're given reason to doubt the protagonist's viewpoint. Just because the narrator is "unreliable" doesn't mean that you can just paint a character in the broadest of strokes and then have no counterbalancing evidence. There is no reason to doubt that Hae-Mi is a stereotype because there's no evidence to the contrary.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on May 24, 2019 8:36:21 GMT
I obviously loved Burning and have posted in this thread but I totally appreciate what is said by Martin Stett and Tommen_Saperstein - I sort of love the film from a different angle and this movie is so thick in its motifs it's possible to argue it in many contradictory ways. There's just no way the film is going to appeal to everyone by design. I am not so sure necessarily that Hae-Mi isn't a stereotype, and that the movie somewhat daringly, isn't better for painting her that way too. As much as class politics and the nature of masculinity are elements (and they are) there is also a very old device addressed - the nature of the literary "hero". The film treats Hae-Mi as a trope because the film seems to be saying explicitly she IS a trope and has defined herself as such - that in this culture, at this time this is how everyone sees her so why shouldn't Lee Jong-su? The fact that you can (or not) tie it into class (and how much) or gender gives the film its elusive pull. In a way the narrator may be unreliable but of course he may be right and as envisioning himself as the avenging hero is a profound idea in and of itself by itself (in a way a similar idea to my beloved Memento - great double feature) - ie he sees himself as a sort of Holden Caulfield who can "see" the hypocrisy and what others miss - The Great Gatsby before his eyes (referenced explicitly in the movie too) only he can arrange the facts for their greater purpose which is avenging Hae-Mi not in the portrayal of her - she exists merely to die in the novel in his head (and the culture in which he lives) .........unlike his own failed novel he can write this one so well.........heck he can even FINISH it too.
|
|
|
Post by Allenism on Apr 22, 2020 13:28:22 GMT
Really late to the party but caught this on Netflix last night. What a cerebral, fascinatingly ambiguous rug-puller.
So, yeah, echoing what other people complained about here, it's definitely rather bloated and takes it's sweeeeeeeet-ass time in the first half to build any tangible momentum, but the whole things comes together rather spectacularly in the end. It's always a good sign where you legitimately don't know where a film is going and yet you continue to fall under its spell. After reading more about the film's allegorical elements, I think a second viewing would yield an even more rewarding experience.
Actingwise, Yeun surely impresses, but I feel like the film really rests on Ah-in's shoulders. The arc of his character is almost challenging to follow at times given how little he shows to the audience. I also don't think people give enough credit to Jong-seo's performance...in rebuttal to what Martin said about her character being a MPDG trope, I don't see that at all. To me she is a damaged young woman with a Peter Pan complex, and even if her intentions for Lee are sincere, she also has no compunction giving into Ben's unspoken promise of upward mobility in an increasingly capitalistic world.
|
|
|
Post by Allenism on Apr 15, 2021 15:31:02 GMT
The more that I think about this one, the more I'm of the mind that it's one of the best foreign films of the century so far.
|
|