Contained in MOViE Mu Wei (movie432)
After watching "Burning", I was so excited that I couldn't sleep, and my mind kept circling every scene in the movie, and that power reverberated and continued.
Eight years ago, I watched Li Cangdong's last work "Poetry" at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival with a group of friends. After the play, everyone looked at each other and was speechless. It was a similar feeling because they were shocked to speak.
"Burning" is indeed very Li Cangdong, but it is not. Because of his literary background, Li Cangdong's narrative and structure have always been clear and powerful. He has always focused on the complex psychology and behavior of the characters, and there is no lack of social criticism, which all have traces in Burning.
But the difference of "Burning" is that the narrative of this drama is very risky, not "Lee Cangdong". It is not a traditional popular narrative, nor does it rely on strong drama conflicts to advance, but just creates a suspense for a long time. The atmosphere, but the suspense is quite ambiguous and mysterious, and does not point to the only result. Some people say that Li Cangdong’s film is very Hitchcock, but although the Hitchcock film is good at managing suspense, in the end it has to confess a result or reversal (surprise, twist). However, Li Cangdong's "Burning" does not provide results or truth, but constantly uses visual cues and obfuscates some of the facts that the audience believes, making the so-called "facts" more and more inconsistent.
I don't know whether Li Cangdong's bold attempt will offend some viewers because of its ambiguity and uncertainty. But to me, the good thing about Burning lies in its mystery and ambiguity, in its vagueness, and its texture of fiction and reality is very close to the essence of "movie".
Returning to the source of the movie, Haruki Murakami's "Burn the Warehouse", the novel conclusively stated that "Shen Huimei" and "Ben" are lovers, but they are only friends with "Zhong Xiu". In Li Cangdong's film, Ben is as mysterious as the novel, but the more mysterious is actually "Shen Huimei". She is the introduction to all the suspense in the film, and she has also been treated very ambiguously in the film. If only Emi took the initiative to strike up a conversation with Zhong Xiu and had sex with him as a proof, it seemed to prove that Hui Mei was really interested in Zhong Xiu. But during the bed scene, Huimei deliberately arranged for Huimei to take out the condom from under the bed, at least it showed that she was ready to have sex at any time, and Zhong Xiu was probably "special" to her, but it would definitely not be the "only" existence. After Huimei brought Ben back from Africa, her attitude began to become more and more divorced and vague.
The movie neither affirms the relationship between Huimei and Ben like a novel, but also vaguely treats Huimei's attitude towards Zhong Xiu. In fact, Zhong Xiu knew very little about Huimei, and most of the things came from Huimei’s difficult to tell the truth. Later, Ben told him that Huimei was actually penniless and did not contact her family, but as Huimei’s "only friend" Zhong Xiu had no idea. But is it possible to infer from this that the relationship between Huimei and Ben is a secret lover, and Huimei approached him because of Ben's gold? Although Huimei owes a lot of card debts (little hunger), when she dances before the sunset, she reveals that her pursuit of persistence is still the original meaning of life (great hunger), and if Ben executes her at Huimei's house (cleaning the room, I took the cat away. She was definitely not the kind of woman Ben looked for later (plastic shed), because that woman would comfortably accept that Ben would make up for her in the mansion (Ben made sacrifices), and Zhong Xiu received Huimei’s In the last call, there was a chaotic noise of traffic, which seemed to imply some kind of "seek help" from Huimei. Of course, whether even Huimei was really "burned" was also reserved in the movie. Zhong Xiu saw the exact same pink watch in the hands of Huimei’s colleague, another promoter woman. How to determine this? Does the watch in Ben's bathroom drawer come from Huimei? And after Hui Mei was accused by Zhong Xiu of "undressing like a prostitute," it seems impossible for her to feel abandoned and betrayed because of this sentence, and even want to escape and disappear.
In the final analysis, "Burning" is not a film that provides the interpretation of the truth of the narrative. All the "possibility" are as stated in the play, and they "exist at the same time". . There are two places in the play that also confirm the "ambiguity" of the whole play. One is Zhong Xiu tracking Ben on a long journey, and hiding behind Ben's Porsche before coming to a lake. The next shot is Zhong Xiucong. Waking up in the dream, so is everything just Zhong Xiu's dream? The other part is the end. Zhong Xiu started typing and writing in Huimei’s room. The next scene is Ben puts on contact lenses, takes out the makeup case, and puts makeup on the woman like a sacrifice. The next scene is Zhong Xiu kills. Ben is dead, so are the last two scenes just "novels" written by Zhong Xiu, everything is just his imagination?
Which one is true and which is false is not the focus of this play. The only conclusive thing is the emotions drawn by the viewer by this mysterious and ambiguous narrative. The viewer is like a clock show in the play, lingering in various plastic sheds. Running, exploring, and being at a loss, in the end, I may not be able to help myself lighting the plastic shed. As for why it triggers such curiosity or produces the same "burning" anger, it is precisely the charm of this movie. "Movie" is to use hallucinations to trigger the feelings in the viewers' hearts. Zhongxiu in the play seems to be like a movie audience. No matter which "truth" he believes, his emotions have already been affected by this series of true and false "illusions". Traction, so that he finally became the author, actively creating possible "illusions", and also using "illusions" to relieve the real anger in his heart.
When I say that "Burning" is close to the essence of the movie, of course, it is not only that the story itself has a contrast with the film itself, but more importantly, "Burning" is a movie full of "cinema".
The cinematic sense of "Burning" comes from its vision, the metaphor (metaphor from Ben’s cooking), and more importantly, it uses vision to stimulate the audience’s imagination and let the audience do it by themselves. The shaping of the film does not rely on straightforward dialogue or plot to tell the story's direction.
Li Anchang said that the best movies must stimulate the imagination of the audience. It is not important for the author to create a story. The most important thing is the viewer's association inspired by the story.
"Burning" is like this.
The core of "Burning" is the association of burning plastic sheds and killing people, but from the beginning to the end, "Burning" did not capture the real murderous scenes of Ben. All suspense and tension are completed by the audience's self-association. That tension comes from The audience's "imagination", Zhong Xiu patrolled in various plastic sheds, but some audiences had already seen burning and murderous scenes in their minds. Similar treatments abound in "Burning", like the cat in Ben's room and the pink watch in the bathroom, which naturally makes the audience think that Ben may "burn" Huimei; another example is Zhong Xiu coming to Huimei's room. Looking for Huimei, the cleanliness of the room deliberately echoes the order of Ben’s mansion, suggesting the possibility of Ben’s murder. Zhong Xiu came to the back door of the Huimei bathroom and found a pink suitcase. This pink suitcase appeared before Huimei came back from Africa. Naturally, the audience has an association of "Huimei is not going to travel this time".
Li Cangdong pays attention to the use of such visual language to guide the audience to complete plot associations and self-suggestion. His thinking is cinematic (visual), and it is entirely the cinematic thinking of the big screen. Like the pink suitcase, Li Cangdong never gave a close-up emphasis from beginning to end; another example is Zhong Xiu went to find a female dancing salesman, he saw the pink watch in her hand, and Li Cangdong used a half-length mid shot from beginning to end. After filming the conversation between the two of them, neither the lens used to emphasize the female salesman's hand nor the lens to deliberately emphasize Zhong Xiu's reaction, but all the visual details will be revealed on the big screen.
In addition to using rich visual language to stimulate the audience's imagination, Li Cangdong also devoted himself to text and sound. Compared with the original novel, it is worth mentioning that Li Cangdong deliberately strengthened the echo and connection between Ben and Zhong Xiu in the film text. Ben completely regarded Zhong Xiu as a kind of person. When meeting in the cafe, he said "It was Ben who wanted to see Zhong Xiu" in the mouth of Huimei. When Ben made the pasta, he explained that cooking is like making a sacrifice for himself. Mention of the word metarphor, on the one hand, caused the audience to speculate that he murdered and sacrificed himself. On the other hand, it also revealed that he imagined himself as a creator like Zhong Xiu. He even read about William Faulkner and invited Zhong Xiu to watch the ugly performances of those "burnt people", completely as Zhong Xiu was part of a group of guests. The most obvious thing is that Zhong Xiu left Ben's house at the end. Ben told him not to take it too seriously and let him feel the whisper in his chest. This adaptation of Li Cangdong actually explains why Ben would share the idea of "burning the plastic shed" with Zhong Xiu alone, and it also gave Ben an extra space for blank space. So in the last scene, when Ben is killed by Zhong Xiu, he will hold Zhong Xiu tightly, showing a certain complex character psychology. When Zhong Xiu drove away naked, the movie music sounded. In the movie music, there was the bass resonance that Ben said, asking Zhong Xiu to feel the chest cavity after burning the plastic shed (killing people)!
This is "Burning": both true and illusion, mystery, stimulating associations, white space, visual language, details, rich text and sound shaping...
For me, the aftertaste of "Burning" is endless, and I once again truly feel the charm and depth of the movie. I think it is too "movie", so good-looking!
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