Fire and Rebirth in Burning

 Despite mirroring the majority of the original narrative in Murakami’s “Barn Burning”, the film adaptation of the story, Burning, diverges from Murakami in both its motifs and character development. Interestingly, instead of burning barns (at least, metaphorically), Ben - the wealthy and alluring foil of the protagonist - has a habit of burning greenhouses. Ben’s character closely resembles Fitzgerald’s Gatsby: a seemingly secure and successful young man with a foreign and largely unknown background who later shows signs of moral and psychological erosion in the face of existential anguish. Similarly, the protagonist, Jong-su, is an aspiring writer (just like Nick Caraway) who loses his love interest, Hae-mi, to Ben. Hae-mi looks largely content with her relationship because Ben provides her with both the material comfort she never had access to growing up and the satisfaction of being loved by a sophisticated man. However, when Hae-mi and Ben visit Jong-su’s old house, Hae-mi starts longing for ghosts of the past. She appears to be torn between the nostalgic yet painful memory of her home filled with struggle and the desire to escape into a bright and exciting future. This tension culminates in Hae-mi’s performance of the “Great Hunger” where she strips and begins dancing. In fact, this is the last time Jong-su ever sees Hae-mi. Instead, Ben is now seen with a different woman. We do not find out what happened to Hae-mi or where she is but it is clear that she is no longer there. The trope of nudity as a symbol of rebirth also appears at the end of the movie when Jong-su goes through his cathartic passage and kills Ben while suspecting him of murdering Hae-mi. Regardless of whether that is true, Ben seems strangely relieved before dying: as if the weight of existential dread has been lifted off his shoulders. Jong-su puts Ben’s body in the car, removes his (own) clothes and burns everything down before driving away with the fire exploding behind him. The motif of fire can be taken to represent the pent up rage of a modern person while constantly confronting their helplessness against the rigid system that they are born into. Regardless of their status, gender, artistic ability, all of the characters in Burning battle with alienation and existential anguish. An interesting detail in the film, however, is the well, which does not appear in the original story but is well-explored by Murakami in many of his other works. The well, representing the dark subconscious, traps Hae-mi as a child (according only to her) and causes her great emotional distress. Hae-mi claims that Jong-su helped her find her way out of the well which may suggest that before her disappearance, Hae-mi is once again freed by Jong-su and subsequently goes through a rebirth herself. 

Ruska