In Lee Chang-dong’s film Burning, the symbol of fire and the uncertainty of its existence reveal the emotions and actions of the characters, which leads the audience to explore the ambiguity of reality, memory, and belief. In this article, I will discuss two aspects of Lee Chang-dong’s film Burning.
The meaning of the title Burning
On the surface, “Burning” refers to two behaviors of the characters in the movie. First, it refers to Ben, a wealthy man with no job, burning a useless plastic house as a hobby, and second, Jong-soo, who grew up in a disadvantaged environment, stabbing Ben to death and throwing all of his clothes into Ben’s car and setting it on fire later in the movie. Both of these scenes have symbolic meanings beyond the simple act. The act of burning is not just the incineration of material, but the release of emotions, repressed desires and anger. Fire means destruction, but it also means regeneration to create something new, which is an important theme that runs through the lives and emotions of the characters in the movie.
I realized that the feelings Jong-soo feels for Hammy and Ben, respectively, can be analogized to fire more than any other substance. To put it simply, Jong-soo feels attachment to Hammy, and Ben feels doubt and inferiority as his main emotions. I wanted to focus on the details of Jong-soo’s feelings of suspicion and inferiority towards Ben, rather than whether or not they were justified, especially whether or not he was right to suspect Ben of killing Hammy. It’s quite impressive that Jong-soo, who has been unable to respond to Ben, finally bursts into action like a fire meeting oxygen. This outburst of emotion may have come from Jong-soo’s own feelings of powerlessness and inferiority that he has been suppressing.
In addition, I thought that there were a lot of fire-related materials and symbols throughout the film, such as Hammy disappearing “like smoke” and Ben and Jong-soo working with fire as a hobby and cooking for a living, respectively. Among the various types of drugs with different ways of entering the body, Ben’s handing Hammy a joint that ‘smokes’ when smoked seemed to be a continuation of Hammy’s smoky disappearance. Ben’s mild euphoria about controlling and creating things while cooking also reminded me of Prometheus’ limitations in bringing fire to humans when he was later burned by Jongsu. These images of fire further highlight the behavior and psychological state of each character, and lead to a deeper exploration of the film’s themes.
Belief in existence
When Hae-mi explains the mime to Jong-soo, she tells him that he shouldn’t believe that there is a tangerine, but that he should forget that there isn’t one. This ties in with the experience of the well that Hae-mi describes to Jong-soo. The contrast between Jong-soo’s mother and Hammy acknowledging the existence of the well, but Hammy’s family treating it as if it were Hammy’s delusion, is striking. This scene raises the question of how subjective and uncertain human memory is: how do they remember things? Jong-soo also struggles to confirm the existence of the cat, Boyle, and is convinced that it is evidence of Hammy’s murder when he shows up at Ben’s house, which reminds me of Schrödinger’s cat. Here, the movie is talking about how ambiguous and uncertain the world we experience and perceive is.
Hammy’s credit card debt and unprepared trip can be understood in a similar way. Rather than taking responsibility for his life, Hammy is shown traveling to Africa on a whim, and he even has a line where he says, “I want to vanish like smoke,” which is a very realistic statement. Traveling allows Hammy to forget about his unhappy life. Mime is a trick that requires you to forget that there is no mime, but traveling allows you to forget that unhappiness is a thing. Hammy’s actions thus illustrate the human psychological need to avoid reality, and in the process reveal how easily we distort and manipulate our own sense of existence. In doing so, the movie invites the audience to ponder the issues of existence and belief.
