Freud discussed that in the process of growth and self-control, people will sublimate excess libido (carnal desire) to spiritual pursuit. It is obviously shameful to be bound by carnal desires, so people turn this nowhere enthusiasm into a love for art and beauty.
"The Bushmen who live in the Sahara Desert say that there are two kinds of hungry people in the world. One is the 'little hungry', that is, people who go hungry due to lack of food. One is those who spend their days thinking about the meaning of life With the purpose 'The Big Hunger'."
The heroine Huimei told Zhongxiu that she was going to Africa to see with her own eyes the hungry people living in the deep desert.
Jong-soo was drawn to Hae-mi's brazen expressiveness and childlike moodiness.
They are both little hungry and big hungry.
Few people can incorporate ethereal philosophical thinking into the plot like director Li Changdong, neither pretending to be obscure nor plain because he caters to the market.
Even if the viewer can't decipher the philosophical core of the film, the plot itself plus the beautiful images are enough to fascinate. Li Cangdong is like a tolerant cook: gourmets can chatter about the level of ingredients, the heat and the ingenuity of the cooks, and ordinary diners can also enjoy it.
But in any case, when the foreshadowing of the grass snake and gray line in the work is revealed by someone with a heart, the author must be overjoyed.
In an interview with "Film Review", Li Changdong briefly described his original intention of creating "Burning": "I realized that anger is one of the most important emotions in today's world, especially for young people." Correspondingly, The protagonists of "Burning" are three angry young men. The three main characters, Hye Mi, Jong Soo and Ben, are a trinity of one self.
Zhong Xiu majored in writing in college, a profession that seemed like a castle in the sky that couldn't fill his stomach. After his military service, he lived on his father's farm in Paju, where he made a living by picking up all kinds of chores. On the way to deliver the courier, Zhongxiu meets Shin Hyemi, a childhood playmate. They have sex in Emi's cramped apartment. Zhong Xiu raised her head and saw a ray of sunlight reflected into the room by the TV station in the distance, briefly passing through her window lattice. Just like that ray of sunshine, Huimei appeared in the corner of Zhong Xiuru's life lacking sunshine, which warmed Zhong Xiu's lonely heart. After Shin Hye Mi left, Zhong Xiu looked at the TV tower outside the window once a day, masturbating to the photo of Hui Mi while waiting for the fleeting rays of sunlight.
Before Emi left, she entrusted her cat named "boil" to Zhongxiu's care. Zhong Xiu had never seen the cat with his own eyes, nor heard the cat's meowing, but the cat food bowl was really decreasing day by day, and there was a lot of excrement in the cat litter. When Emi returned, she was accompanied by a mysterious man named Ben. Ben is a young rich man with a mansion in the south of the Yangtze River, but no one knows the source of his wealth. Chung-soo, not without jealousy, compares him to Gatsby.
Ben tells Zhongxiu about his special hobby - arson. Every few months, he finds an unowned plastic greenhouse in the countryside to burn. It was the only thing in the world that gave him pleasure.
Emi disappeared.
Zhong Xiu also gradually realized the dark meaning behind the so-called "burning the barn". To avenge Emi, he stabbed Ben in the belly outside of his Porsche. The injured Ben Chao crawled inside the car for a while, Zhong Xiu grabbed the back of his neck, turned him over, and stabbed him several times. Ben's fingers ran across Zhongxiu's shoulders almost gently. he died.
Zhong Xiu tore off the blood-stained clothes and poured gasoline on Ben's body and body. A dazzling flame exploded behind Zhong Xiu, and he walked towards the camera naked, leaving a scarlet trail behind him.
At first glance, "Burning" seems to be denouncing the gap between the rich and the poor and the shortage of resources in Korean society. But all kinds of social conflicts are actually just the curtain of Li Cangdong's spiritual journey. Jong-soo, Ben and Hye-mi are not just representatives of conflicting social classes; they are one person from start to finish.
In Freud's psychoanalytic system, the mind is composed of three parts: id, ego, and superego.
The id is the original desire. The ego is the consciousness cut off from ignorance and chaos. The superego is the parental authority of conscience, morality, and internalization.
Emi is the animal id.
Remember her appearance? Wearing a miniskirt and crop top, Emi swayed her waist as she solicited customers for the supermarket. The handheld camera focuses on her bare shoulders and collarbone, with a certain restrained hunger, as if it were Zhong Xiu's first-person perspective. They immediately have sex in Emi's apartment. The four-minute-long sex scene is shaky, straightforward, and awkward like a homemade sex tape. For the first time, the indifferent Jong-soo showed strong emotions in front of the audience.
Freud stated in Civilization and Impairment: "Sex gives the most intense satisfaction. It is the archetype of all pleasures. People will involuntarily make the stimulation of the genitals the center of life."
Jong-soo, who is himself, indulges in Hye-mi's body, which is lust itself.
It is also worth mentioning that Zhongxiu found the invisible cat boil in Ben's house. When he called boil's name, the fleeing cat walked towards him meekly. Zhong Xiu held the cat in his arms, as if he had found the lost Emi.
Lee Chang-dong establishes a mysterious connection between the cat and Hye-mi. Emi is instinctive and animal. Like a child, she danced in the crowd, took off her shirt in front of the man, and danced in the sunset with her bare chest, crying when she was sad, and smiling when she was happy.
Zhong Xiu loves Hui Mei, and is deeply attracted by her ego, and her spirit is indulged in beautiful indulgence and disorder.
Freud said that people naturally chase happiness. They want to be happy, and they want to be that way forever. In this childlike insatiable pursuit, the superego gradually emerges, urging the ego to return to a collective and orderly life.
Ben appeared when Zhong Xiu was addicted to chasing happiness.
The responsibility of the superego is to admonish the unrestrained id and redeem the deviated ego. Fittingly, Ben tamed Emi and took her away from Jong-soo. Zhong Xiu was beaten back from a state of contentment to a meager daily life.
Ben was only indifferent to Huimei, but seemed much more eager to Zhongxiu. Rather than saying that he was attracted to Huimei, it is better to say that he approached Huimei in order to communicate with Zhongxiu. What normal man would call his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend every now and then, and happily construct a three-person world?
Freud discussed that in the process of growth and self-control, people will sublimate excess libido (carnal desire) to spiritual pursuit. It is obviously shameful to be bound by carnal desires, so people turn this nowhere enthusiasm into a love for art and beauty.
In other words, the source of all creative passions in the world is sexuality.
The superego encourages the ego to release carnal desires into creation. Similarly, Ben repeatedly mentioned Zhong Xiu's unwritten novel and encouraged him to keep writing.
The superego is rational and restrained. Ben's appearance is always meticulous, and his smile is impeccable. When Emi cried bitterly, Ben wondered, "I never cry. I don't know why people cry."
The trio's relationship reaches a point of equilibrium when Emi dances in the sunset. The ego, the superego and the id are reconciled at the same time.
Lee Chang-dong commented on Hye-mi's dance in an interview: "This is the central image of the whole film... I put it in the moment of dusk, between day and night, between truth and lies, between reality and fantasy. "
After this dance, the delicate balance between ego, superego and id is broken. The plot is like a derailed train, escaping from Freud's model. From this moment of deviating from the model, the story also gets interesting.
According to Freud, the superego suppresses the id but should never destroy the id. The ego fears the superego and never tries to challenge the authority of the superego.
Chaplin's "Modern Times" gives us the key to solving the puzzle: when the suppression of the superego (the ubiquitous surveillance of the factory manager) becomes unbearable, the body loses control and turns the long-suppressed aggression On top of the people around (the conveyor belt is getting faster and faster, Charlie loses control of his hands and feet, gets caught in the machine, goes insane, attacks other workers and innocent passers-by).
What happens when the superego kills the id?
Zhong Xiu lost control. As if the accelerator button was pressed, everything around him fell into some kind of crazy spin. Zhong Xiu's father was sentenced to prison, and Zhong Xiu's literary petition became a piece of waste paper. Zhongxiu's long-lost mother suddenly appears and borrows money from him. The calves on the farm were tied up, loaded into carts and sold, with tears in their eyes. Looking at the cow's tears, he felt as if he was indistinguishable from this calf that was slaughtered by others, a speck of dust in the historical reincarnation of the boundless universe. The calf's tears seemed to be a lament for the eventual return to nothingness; Emi disappeared, and he went crazy hoping to prove that the well Emi said and the burnt thatched cottage that Ben said really existed. He hoped not to be invaded by vain thoughts.
The ego is ready to kill his superego.
Zhongxiu picks out a sharp knife from his father's collection, asks Ben out in Emi's name, and stabs Ben.
Ben looked Zhongxiu directly in the eyes. This is the first time he has shown a mood other than decency and grace in a film. Ben held the knife that Zhong Xiu stabbed in his hand, and looked at Zhong Xiu with tears in his eyes, as if to say, "You finally understand! Do you feel it, it will never stop in my heart and make me sleepless at night. The bass?" This look is also grateful, and Ben is grateful to Zhong Xiu for giving him the ideal home - burning.
Ben, covered in blood, seemed to be filled with some kind of softness and gentleness. He embraced Zhong Xiu and died peacefully in the arms of the murderer, as if what Zhong Xiu imposed on him was not death but redemption.
The superego is the sublimated lust and creativity. The id is the life force of anger. When the id loses its creativity and vitality, where does it go?
After killing Ben, Zhong Xiu stripped off his clothes, threw them into the fire, and walked towards the camera naked with blank eyes. He went back to his infantile unconsciousness.
Adam and Eve were immersed in this naked, infantile chaos before stealing the fruit from the Tree of Wisdom. Although they rule over animals and plants, they are not substantially different from them. After stealing the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were ashamed and covered their private parts with fig leaves.
Emi once took off her shirt and danced with her bare chest. Following her example, Zhong Xiu took off her clothes, hatred, worry and anger. As he stumbled along, his eyes became empty and calm.
Just as the blood of Jesus dripped from the cross onto Adam's skull, washing away the original sin, Zhongxiu returned to the Garden of Eden in the slaughter and sacrifice.
Is this Li Cangdong's answer? Only violence and catharsis can resolve anger and bring salvation? Only when the harsh superego and the lascivious id are simultaneously abandoned can the ego be sublimated? Is the state of ignorance and ignorance the most ideal state?
Li Cangdong never gave an answer. He only brings more problems.
After the screening, I had the pleasure of participating in a Q&A session with Steven Yeun, who plays Ben.
In contrast to the perfect Ben, who always wears a mask, Steven himself looks easygoing in a cap and jeans.
I asked, "How do you define Ben and Jong Soo's relationship? The movie never says whether Ben killed the girls. Was he the murderer?"
To the first question, Steven replied: "Throughout his life, every character has been waiting for another character. Jong-soo has been waiting for Hui-mi. Hui-mi has been waiting for Ben. Ben has been waiting for Jong-soo. They make each other whole."
He thought for a moment, then continued: "Is Ben a murderer? I asked Director Lee Changdong the same question. He told me at the time: 'You can figure it out.' So I made my choice. Shooting When he was done, he asked me: 'What are your options?' I decided to keep it a secret from him and from you."
Steven also declined to give an answer.
My friend Runze once said firmly: "Li Changdong must be a nihilist." He also said, "Nothing is a denial of meaning, a disdain for the future, and they choose to live in the moment. Don't think or worry. As Ben said when answering Zhongxiu's question about burning the thatched hut: 'Don't look at it, don't judge, just accept the reality.' Emi and Ben said to a certain extent There is a kind of harmony. Emi hopes to disappear like the clouds on the desert horizon, while Ben hopes to burn down life like a thatched cottage, 'without leaving a trace of ashes, as if it never existed'. From this perspective, Emi wants to disappear, and Ben satisfies her, eventually leading the ego into chaos."
"Burning" is empty. A naked man with a baby-like ignorance walks away from the flames and the highly industrialized skyline. There is nothing on the land after the fire, and no more flowers will bloom on the barren land where there is nothing.
Manuscript: Jia Xiaohan, Qiu Runze
Editor in charge: Duan Runzhou, Zheng Zhongjie
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