Burning Movie Review

While I really liked the movie Burning, I am not sure that it completely captured the feeling I had while reading Murakami's story. The main discrepancy, in my opinion, is the difference of the main character Jong-Su in Burning to the main character in "Barn Burning" who in the short story is married, 11 years older than the girl, and without really any backstory. Meanwhile, in Burning Jong-su is a troubled young creative writing student whose father is going in and out of jail and has very little money. This creates a different atmosphere because I honestly became much more interested in Jong-Su than the whole situation with Hae-mi and her disappearance, compared to when reading the short-story and I was interested in the detective aspect. This could also be because in class we had already discussed that the boyfriend had killed the girl in the short story, so I already knew what was going to happen.

There were however a lot of other interesting points of the movie with different Murakami references/themes. I don't know if it is reading too much into it, but I thought that when Hae-mi and Ben arrive from their trip and meet Jong-su at the airport, and she is craving a specific stew, this reminds me of Murakami's interest in food and how it interacts with everyday life.  Additionally, when Jong-su goes to Ben's apartment for the first time, Ben is cooking pasta and I noticed on the counter-top there was spaghetti, which is reminiscent of a Murakami theme. The directors could have just randomly added this detail but I am curious if they were inspired by Murakami's other short stories when they included this. Also, the Faulkner novel is mentioned many times in the movie, which is where the title of "Burning Barns" comes from, and it is also mentioned in the short story when the main character reads it while waiting for the girl at the airpot. And Ben is having trouble naming the cat, which could be another Murakami theme of having a particular relationship with names, but also it could just be because the cat was originally named Boil and named by Hae-mi. 

I think the fact that the movie was set in Korea changed the mood slightly, although I do not know enough about Japanese or Korean culture to truly tell if there were any big differences. The movie seems to be more specifically touch on class structures in Korea, and the differences between Ben and his glamorous lifestyle compared to Jong-su's life, but I can imagine that there might be similar class differences in Japan. I wonder if there is a reason that they called the barns greenhouses in the movies, and if it is because greenhouses are more common in Korea than Japan, or if it was just a stylistic choice from the director.

Overall, I thought it was a really engaging and fascinating movie that did not have as much to do with the specific story "Barn Burning" as I might have thought, but overall included many aspects of Murakami's themes in his writing that are clear when looking at some of the smaller details in the film.

-Audrey Hager