There are two kinds of brain-burning movies.
One is to rely on a complicated narrative structure and make a fuss about the way of narration. For example, Nolan's "Inception" and "Memories", Brian Singer's "The Very Suspect", David Fincher's "Fight Club" and so on.
The other is to use a large number of symbols to construct a complex metaphor system to give the film an open interpretation. For example, David Lynch's "Muholland Road", Luo Hongzhen's "Cry", Aronofsky's "Mother!" ", and this one we are going to talk about today-Li Cangdong's "Burning".
The latter kind of brain-burning film can be watched repeatedly to explore the direction of different stories; you can also keep a close eye on the clues of your concern and look in depth.
For example, from "Burning", some people see the metaphor of the political pattern of the world today. The three protagonists in the film, Zhong Xiu, Hui Mei and Ben, are the symbols of North Korea, South Korea and the United States respectively.
Ben lives in a mansion, drives a luxury car, talks about Africa and China with his friends, and hunts women like Huimei as his trophy. The love affair between Huimei and Zhongxiu was also blocked because of Ben's intervention.
Understanding "Burning" from this perspective, you can see the feeling of a political thriller, even though it has nothing to do with politics on the surface.
Others regard "Burning" as a story in which the writer meets the muse in life.
The writer is Zhong Xiu. As mentioned in the film, he dreams of writing novels but suffers from no inspiration.
Afterwards, Ben's sudden appearance and Huimei's bizarre disappearance gave him inspiration for creation.
If you pay attention, when the film is 2 hours, 14 minutes and 30 seconds, there is a scene of Zhong Xiu sitting in front of the window of Huimei's house and typing on the keyboard. This scene is very abrupt and has nothing to do with the previous plot. It seems that the following plot is just a fictional writing by Zhong Xiu. He killed Ben in fantasy, ruined the body, and drove away. At the end of the film, The sound of the bass symbolizing "pleasure" is not the joy of killing, but the joy of completing the creation.
This understanding is also very interesting.
But for me, the story of "Burning" is more universal. It tells how a boy breaks through his own survival dilemma and finally finds the meaning of existence.
The demarcation point of the film appeared at 79 minutes, the conversation between Zhong Xiu and Ben.
Before that, Zhong Xiu was a character without initiative, almost pushed forward by fate : when she reunited with Huimei, Huimei took the initiative to strike up a conversation; every time she was on a date, Huimei called first; even two people The only sex was completed under the leadership of Huimei; later, the young rich Ben suddenly appeared and joined the love triangle, and Zhong Xiu almost withdrew from the battle in the first place, willing to do this love. Bystander.
For Zhong Xiu, living in such a world of nothingness and being at the mercy of fate is a natural thing.
Just like his disintegrated home, his mother ran away from home very early, and his father was facing imprisonment. He, living alone in the suburbs, did not have a stable job, did not see any hope, and did not dare to ask for it. Love.
Therefore, it is only natural for Zhong Xiu to accept any consequences caused by this absurd world and give up resistance.
In the film, director Li Cangdong designed a large number of plots of "virtual and real counterpoint" to show the impermanence and unknowability of the world in which the protagonist lives:
For example, for the cat whose whereabouts are uncertain, we can only see its excrement, see the declining cat food and water, but cannot get a glimpse of its true content.
For example, the dry well mentioned by Huimei, almost everyone denied its existence, only Huimei insisted that it really existed.
There is also the non-material pantomime of eating oranges performed by Huimei, the unanswered calls that Zhong Xiu keeps receiving, and the suspicious feminine items hidden in the locker of Ben's house...
All these uncertainties cast a layer of erratic and blurred psychological filter for the whole film.
That is a world that cannot be guessed, and what falls on everyone is an uncontrollable and out-of-control life.
The protagonist Zhong Xiu is trapped in such a life puzzle, accepting all encounters. It was the conversation with Ben that prompted him to change.
At that moment, the night begins.
Ben casually mentioned that he has a quirk of burning an abandoned "plastic shed" every two months. He felt that it was a pleasure to burn down those plastic sheds that were useless and obtrusive.
Zhong Xiu asked, "Do you judge which ones are useless?"
Ben smiled and replied, " No, I don't judge, I just accept it, accept the reality that they are waiting to be burned. "
At that time, there was silence everywhere, and a secret tension tightened between the two men. We faintly felt that Ben's words had another meaning.
What is it?
It's not hard to guess.
At the gathering between Ben and friends, Huimei talked about her experience of traveling in Africa. Everyone could hear it, but Ben shrank in the corner and yawned quietly.
Later, in another girl, the same thing happened again.
What does yawn mean?
tedious.
Yes, in Ben's eyes, there is no difference between the inside of these glamorous girls.
They are all lonely, empty, and worthless.
Just like those abandoned "plastic sheds", standing blankly in the wilderness, there is no difference between existence and nonexistence. Even if it is burned, no one cares.
In Ben's view, Huimei is just such a "plastic shed."
She lives alone, has no friends, no money, is disgusted by her family, and has little to do with the world.
The reason why Ben hasn't started for a long time is because of Zhong Xiu's existence.
Huimei once said that Zhong Xiu is the only person in the world she believes, because no matter what happens, he will stand by her side.
It is this weak connection that makes Huimei one step away from Ben’s ideal "plastic shed", because in this world, there are people who care about her, this riddled "plastic shed", and The sun is shining in.
However, what happened later was extremely cruel.
On the same day that Zhong Xiu and Ben had a conversation, Huimei took off her shirt after smoking marijuana, and danced solo in the twilight with her naked body.
In the setting sun, her silhouette looks very lonely, but she also has a lonely freedom.
But this indulgence, in the eyes of Zhong Xiu, has become debauchery.
He said viciously to Huimi, "How can you take off your clothes so easily in front of a man? Only a prostitute would do this!"
In an instant, Huimei put away the smile on her face and left without expression.
At that time, she must be ashamed.
When she vaguely returned to her childhood, she stumbled and fell into a dry well. She cried for several hours, but no one cared about it.
Suddenly, Zhong Xiu's face appeared in Iguchi. So she smiled, and he smiled too.
But this time, it was Zhong Xiu who pushed her down.
Just listening to a snap, the last touch of her connection with this world also quietly broke.
This time, she really became the perfect "plastic shed" in Ben's heart.
So we understand what happened later.
When Hui Mei suddenly disappeared, when Zhong Xiu guessed Ben's implication and knew what he meant to Hui Mei, the boy who didn't take any initiative in the first half of the film finally started to act.
He wanted to find out the truth of Huimei’s disappearance. He ran around all the plastic sheds around his house. He followed Ben’s car all day and tracked his whereabouts. Until the end, when the evidence became clearer, he killed him without hesitation. Ben.
He wants Ben to know that Huimei is not a "plastic shed" that no one cares about. She is a person, she is loved, and she has her own meaning.
At the end of the film, Zhong Xiu took off his blood-stained clothes and burned along with Ben's body and the luxury car. He was naked and drove away with a raging fire behind him.
It was a picture that undoubtedly heralded "rebirth from the fire."
It turns out that the so-called "burning" means rebirth from the ashes.
It is the process of a boy facing the absurd world, from drifting with the crowd to rising up to resist.
In the end, he killed the Ben who symbolized the supreme will, recovered the meaning of existence for Huimei, and proved the value of his existence.
The value of a person's existence is to resist this absurd world for what he cares about.
"Burning", a typical existential text.
As I watched it, I kept thinking of Bresson’s "Pickpocket", in which the protagonist is a thief. I thought life was meaningless until I met a girl, but at that time, he had gone to prison.
Across the iron fence, he looked at the girl affectionately and said to himself: " You don't know how I have gone through to meet you. "
Yes, it must be a difficult road.
Just like Zhong Xiu in "Burning", he must have never imagined that all the answers are hidden in the "cat" who is erratic.
That is a "Schrodinger's cat", whether it is dead or alive, no one knows, just like this world is impermanent.
Only when you actively intervene and pursue, everything will move towards a bright future.
And this is the meaning of existence.
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