Discussing - Burning (2018) - with a friend

Me: Theres a sick interpretation that rich guy was helping her to learn acting and all and it was just MC who failed to understand like a retard, but now that she learned to even lie to a friend so well, he helped her to reinvent and start the life anew, and thats what he meant by 'playing', he is playing on the emotions that he is not experiencing himself. Ironically he was the only one that burned lmaooo... Also masturbation a parallel to pantomime


Him: Lol I’m not sure if I agree but I do like the concept of the theme that as long as we don’t see her, all possible interpretations can be true, and yeah the masturbation thing too.


There’s a lot in the movie I like about the themes it plays with lol



[05:56]
Not to mention the cinematography of all the sunsets


-Although yeah its cool how evil rich can be seen as still somewhat negative and still somewhat positive... Would agree with that theory because he also seemed to not be that good at convos with people who are greenhouses and he could look down on these two people and fake as many interactions as many he wanted while he would be in charge, so it expands on class themes further and all Also fits will in to the 'story is in your head' and MC being a retard with mind full of propaganda around him


-Yeah it could technically go either way since the story plants a details that point to both a bit (the girl was learning phantomime and although she denied it, the guy asked her early in the movie if she wanted to be an actress) (Ben the rich dude keeps trophies of girls watches, has her cat etc etc) and yeah his status allows him this carefree life where he’s allowed to “play”, to help or to ruin a persons life. I also considered another idea actually, I was pretty sure that he did kill her but what I wasn’t sure of was whether it was murder or consensual. He goes after girls with mental illnesses (mostly depression from what we see) who are loners that no one would notice if they disappeared by going to airports where he finds these “adventurous girls” who want to escape their lives. I think there’s also a possibility he only goes after girls who had plastic surgery since it could be a sign of socially induced insecurity, a commentary on the toxicity of korea’s beauty standards, but it also helps him spot out the depressed girls. Since they’re depressed and they are in search of meaning in their lives but are connected to no one, he might be assisting or manipulating them into suicide. The scene where he was putting on makeup on the second girl made me feel it was likely.
Also loner girls who also got plastic surgery means no one in their past life knows them anymore or can recognize them, completely cut off from their past and prime targets in every way


-when he was putting make-up I thought that him helping girl to reshape their lives was the way to burn their greenhouses, lol. But yeah, it could also be that he killed her with the consent, because the girl wanted to die before Ben even appeared, but she said that she was too afraid of it and not to mention how she met her childhood friend and seemingly successful initiated a relationship that would give her life a meaning maybe, as she used that well metaphor - looking from down (depression or whatever) and seeing the boy who came her to save her, but then he told her that she is acting like a whore and that would basically ruin the girl's idea that she could live with the boy and would completely give up on her life... that was also when she last time appeared and she basically left the watch behind, what was her connection with the boy, specifically, as if left it behind. If rich guy were to kill her without consent, it would be very weird to randomly save up the exact things the protagonist had connection with (the watch and the cat), so I do not think its the case. Too generic imo, especially when that way the boy would have kinda correct interpretation of the events. As well as how non-chalantly Ben appeared next to obsessed protagonist, in the middle of nowhere - an obvious trap. He would know and would have been cautious in that case. So he def did not take the ordeal seriously, which would be the case for someone who achieved it with consent, nothing to worry about. I still prefer the interpretation that she has not died, though


-I also like how the idea of Schrödinger’s cat is sorta inversed in another theme of the movie. As long as we don’t see what happened, all possibilities exist as to what happened to the girl just like the cat’s existence but also the theme of memory in the film is completely the opposite. Our existence is confirmed by the memory of the people who know us. When everyone forgets, it’s no different as having not existed. Instead of forgetting there isnt something there in the first place, we forget there was something and once we forget, it’s not there anymore. Each person’s memory of a person makes that person real in each person’s individual reality but once everyone forgets u, your reality no longer exists. Instead of making an imaginary fruit feel like it’s there by forgetting it’s not, we make a person who actually was there seem like they’re gone without a trace once we forget them, which is why he was always asking ppl if they remembered the well in the story by the girl


I also felt that she began to be unsure if she wanted to die and started to have hope in living until he called her a whore and let her down, I felt like she prolly decided to die after that meeting as well when the last person she believed in let her down


Also about Ben, I was considering the idea that maybe he also wanted to die or feel some kinda thrill or something. He was def sadistic since he kept rubbing in the mc’s face he was dating the girls and also laughed when the mc said he loved the girl but he also really was interested in the mc too so it made me a bit curious as to whether suicide might’ve been a motive for him too


- I thought he himself was a greenhouse and had all of these riches and pretension to mask that, with how he constantly walks with a smile and tries to have control over everything otherwise he gets bored - precisely why he find such worthless girls 'interesting' - , but its in vain, so that let him empathise with girls and either kill them or just help with the life


cat was just walking around, they did not even mention the term and



[16:15]
people are here criticizing the movie for shoehorning Schrödinger’s cat. how can it be more subtle than that





-Yeah and it’s balanced with two opposing themes that both contrast and compliment each other


Yeah that’s possible, he seems to be neurally deficient or something but I felt he might be jealous of their desire for meaning in their lives since he seemed apathetic, not even being able to cry which is psychopathic lol


The way they talked about greenhouses and when I realize it’s a metaphor, although it’s a simple method when u look at it, it does so well to create tension as they talk without ever giving confirmation to the metaphor, so that surface tension stays and doesn’t pop


-yeah I thought he was either a psycho, or just too detached, to the point he just convinced himself on deep level that he can't cry or feel thing, but he is just self-unaware on emotional level, just self-aware on rational level - because he was also saying how he was feeling things he has not felt before when he was around them


random joke metaphor fucked up their lives


-Yeah u can make a case of either way with him to an extent


Also speaking of the masturbation scenes, what do u think about the sunlight?


-Hmm, sunlight was one of the prominent details from his memory of fucking, so fucking at the same hour with the same sunlight probably helped him to reimagine it properly



Lol phone calls were just his shy mom, cant fucking believe it


-That’s pretty interesting, I didn’t think of that but I meant the sunlight itself


I thought of it as a symbol for chance/ hope since u can only see it if ur lucky, like their meeting in itself was by complete chance, a very slim window of coincidence they met again. Most of the victims of Ben (if he killed her) were loners who had no connections so they had no hope but one of his victims, the girl happened to find that small window of hope of survival by meeting him, and then when he disappointed her by calling her a whore, he missed another chance opportunity to save her life, a small window that happened to appear in front of him by chance and he was never getting another one I’m not completely sure tho