I watched it for the first time as early as half a year ago, but only recently did I notice some interesting settings in the film, and my reflection on the theme has gone a step further. There is no doubt that the director left a lot of imagination space for the audience, leaving a lot of blank space for endless aftertastes. I list the following questions for everyone to think about and discuss, and I also list some "answers" of my own:
Q1: What is the meaning of burning? :
· Li Zhongxiu's burning of a real plastic greenhouse when he was a child [a real greenhouse];
· Ben's physical destruction of a young poor woman like Hae Mi who is "useless, looking upset but really a lot of poor, destitute and has no relatives to contact her" [a virtual plastic greenhouse];
· The bodily destruction of the rich class represented by Ben to the lower class represented by Haimei [a batch of plastic greenhouses];
· Lee Jong-soo ignited Ben [the greenhouse in his heart] in "his own novel"
...
Q2: The film hints at the identity gap and class gap between Ben, Lee Jong-soo and Hae-mi:
· In Haimei's house, the windows are so small that you can only look up at the sky outside the window through the narrow windows;
· Li Zhongxiu, who was following Ben trying to find out Haimei's whereabouts, was eating bread on the street and looked up at Ben who was exercising in the building across the road. Ben was also looking down at the ground at this time, a huge gap;
· In the gathering of Zhongxiu, Hae Mi, Ben and Ben's friends, Ben yawns while Hae Mi speaks and dances (Ben also yawns impatiently when the second woman he met in China speaks), Ben's wealthy friend They also showed disdain
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Q3: What is the relationship between Ben, Lee Jong-soo, and Hae-mi in the film?
· Lee Jong-soo and Hae-mi: Hae-mi recognized Lee Jong-soo at a glance and liked them very much. Both of them had a good impression of each other. After the relationship, Lee Jong-soo was asked to feed the cat. Even after returning with Ben, Hae-mi always cared about Lee Jong-soo, but it was a pity that Lee Jong-soo Misunderstood Haimei:
Detail 1: After dinner, Hae Mi intends to let Li Zhongxiu send her back, but Zhongxiu directly said that her home was too far away and gave up the opportunity;
Detail 2: That night, ben really just sent Hae-mi home, because Hae-mi didn't know where the bathroom was when she went to Ben's house, apparently it was the first time.
Ben and Hae-mi: Ben apparently just sees Hae-mi as a new burning thrill, and Hae-mi adores Ben, envies his RV property, and thinks it's pleasing to her to get to know him and gradually integrate into his life (Dining with Ben's friends, smoking marijuana at dusk, etc.) So are Ben and Hae-mi really together?
Not so. Hae Mi always had hope for Lee Jong Soo, so you can imagine how she felt when Jong Soo said she was a bitch before leaving her house, and Ben was the happiest at this moment, he would think that the last trust Hai Mei's has also left her, and her long-planned actions are about to begin to be put into action. This is also one of the reasons why he would say "I've never been jealous of anyone, you are the first person I was jealous of" when facing Lee Jong-soo's follow-up questioning, because in Hae-mi's body, Ben lost to Lee Jong-soo, Hae-mi It must have been Lee Jong-soo who he loved until the end, the first person he felt he didn't get.
· Li Zhongxiu and Ben: Obviously they have a very complicated relationship. In the end, Ben hugged Li Zhongxiu tightly before his death and died in his arms. How to interpret:
Ben's ultimate relief. Ben has been burning plastic sheds that he doesn't think are necessary in this society, and this time it's finally his turn. Ben has been relying on this morbid hobby to survive in the world, and it is also a relief for him to be killed by the carer of his sacrifice.
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Q4: Is the protagonist really Lee Jong-soo? What about Ben?
Although the perspective of the film is based on Li Zhongxiu, but after the second brush, I feel that the protagonist of the film should be Ben.
Ben's hobby is finding young women who have been forgotten by society: they are poor, they are in debt, and they travel to foreign countries; they have no social connections, and no one will remember them even if they are missing; As if waiting for him to burn them; they have no value to society, like social worms that should be burned.
Ben is a child of a rich family. He has a luxury house and a luxury car, and he can cook and smoke marijuana. These are the hobbies of the rich. At the same time, it also means that burning is not his only crime;
· He is calm and numb to everything, and the life that has already touched the ceiling seems to have no waves to him. He needs to find the pleasure and stimulation in life, and this demand is slowly evolving into distortion. The film does not show this process, but only gives the result, which is Ben's current character. He smokes marijuana, and so does his bimonthly burn.
Ben burns them for this, enjoying the thrill of witnessing their physical demise.
There is a lot of foreshadowing about Ben's "burning hobby":
· The most important scene that makes this point directly is: Ben and Lee Jong-soo talking to Lee Jong-soo in the early morning outside the house "/"These greenhouses are useless, it's really annoying to see them. I feel joy watching them burn, as if waiting for me to burn" / "There is no right or wrong, only the morality of nature" / " This time I came here to inspect in advance, it is very close and not far from your home"
· Ben met Lee Jong-soo for the first time, and Ben called his family in the car: "I am healthy and my genes are excellent"
· Ben said "my job is to play" when we ate fat sausage hot pot together after picking up the plane
· Lee Jong-soo and Hae-mi went to Ben's house for the first time. Ben would cook pasta. He said, "As long as it's fun, I'll do anything." "I'll make a sacrifice for myself and eat it."
· After Hae-mi's disappearance, Lee Jong-soo said that he went through all the surrounding plastic greenhouses and found none of them burnt. Asked about Ben Hae-mi's whereabouts, Ben said directly, "Because the distance is too close, you will miss it and see it. gone like smoke"
Q5: Does the ending of the film actually happen or does it exist in the fantasy world of Lee Jong-soo?
I think the ending of the last paragraph is really just a fantasy of Lee Jong-soo, a story that exists in his mind and writes in the novel:
· In the whole film, he doesn't have any ideas enough to write, and he has no clue about his novel, until he discovers Shen Haimei's sports watch and cat in Ben's house, and he completes the whole story. The last woman he met at Ben's house, that is, Ben's next target, was also within the scope of his "brain-filling fantasy". He knew that Ben would follow his previous procedures to give her a good makeup before leaving;
· The sudden change of Lee Jong-soo's character in the last paragraph, from forbearance and silence to decisiveness and outburst, stabbed Ben with a knife without even saying a word, which is inconsistent with the image that the film has always created;
· The bloody and violent style of the entire paragraph is also very different from the previous slow and calm;
· The behaviors of the characters in the whole paragraph are more figurative, and there is a feeling similar to the restoration of the case, more like the ending that someone is manipulating behind the scenes, rather than happening naturally;
· Before writing, Lee Jong-soo was an overhead shot from the window. Slowly zooming in, the scene gradually became smaller. The use of audio-visual language gave the audience a feeling that the end was about to end. The director may also want to use this to imply that the illusory mind world is about to be opened;
· The film's soundtrack before the last segment is minimal, and mostly the use of main theme music, but from the first shot of the fantasy (Ben is looking for a vanity box to prepare for makeup), the music is almost covered.
What other interesting settings have you discovered? Come and share with me!
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