In this blog post, we will look at how the symbolism of fire and the uncertainty of existence in the movie “Burning” reveal the inner world of the characters.
What the movie title “Burning” suggests
In the movie, “Burning” first represents two actions of the characters on the surface. First, it refers to the act of Ben, a wealthy man with no job, burning a useless greenhouse as a hobby. Second, it refers to the act of Jong-soo, who grew up in a disadvantaged environment, stabbing Ben to death in the second half of the movie and putting all of his clothes in Ben’s car and burning the car body. These two scenes contain more than just an act; they have symbolic meaning. The act of burning is not just about incinerating material, but also about exploding the emotions that lie within them: suppressed desires and anger. Fire signifies destruction, but at the same time, it also has the meaning of regeneration to create something new, and this acts as an important theme that runs through the lives and emotions of the characters in the film.
I thought that Jong-soo’s feelings for Hae-mi and Ben could be compared to fire more than any other substance. To put it simply, Jong-soo feels attachment to Hae-mi and suspicion and inferiority to Ben as his main emotions. At this point, I wanted to focus on the details of Jong-soo’s behavior rather than whether his suspicions and feelings of inferiority were justified, especially whether he was right to suspect that Ben had killed Haemi. It was quite impressive that Jong-soo, who had been unable to respond to Ben, acted like a fire that burst out like a fire that met oxygen. This outburst of emotion may have been caused by Jong-soo’s feelings of helplessness and inferiority that he had been suppressing.
In addition, I thought that there were various fire-related materials and symbols throughout the film, such as Hae-mi’s disappearance “like smoke” and the scenes of Ben and Jong-soo cooking as a hobby or for a living, both of which involve fire. Among the many types of drugs that can be ingested in various ways, Ben gave Haemi cannabis that gave off smoke when she smoked it, which made her disappearance and the series of events that followed look like smoke. In addition, Ben in the story showed a slight sense of euphoria about cooking and creating something, and when he recalled that he was burned by Jong-soo, he also thought of the limitations of Prometheus, who taught humans how to make fire. These images of fire further highlight the actions and psychological states of each character, allowing the audience to explore the theme of the film in greater depth.
Belief in the existence or non-existence of something
In the story, Hae-mi explains mime to Jong-soo, saying that we should forget that there are tangerines, not believe that there are tangerines. This is also connected to Hae-mi’s experience with the well that she explains to Jong-soo. The contrast between Jong-soo’s mother and Hae-mi, who acknowledged the existence of the well, and Hae-mi’s family, who treated it as Hae-mi’s delusion, was impressive. This scene raises the question of how subjective and uncertain human memory is. How do they remember their existence? In addition, Jong-soo finds it difficult to confirm the existence of the cat “Boyle,” but when he sees it appear at Ben’s house, he is convinced that it is evidence of Ha-mi’s murder, which reminds him of Schrödinger’s cat. Here, the film is talking about how ambiguous and uncertain the world we experience and perceive is.
Haemi’s trip to Africa, which she went on despite having credit card debt, can be understood in a similar vein. Haemi shows us her trip to Africa without thinking about taking responsibility for her life, while at the same time she says, “I want to disappear like smoke,” and utters a line that confronts reality. Traveling allows Haemi to forget that she has an unhappy life. Mime is a trick that only works if you forget that there is no mime, but traveling makes you forget that there is misfortune. Hae-mi’s actions show the psychological desire of humans to avoid reality, and in the process, we reveal how easily we distort and manipulate the existence of ourselves. Through this, the film makes the audience think deeply about the issues of existence and belief.
