Based on Murakami Haruki’s short story Barn Burning, Burning is about the enigmatic relationship between three people. Jongsu meets childhood friend Haemi, who seems to be lively but somewhat hollow, and falls for her. But Haemi asks him to take care of her cat while she takes off for Africa. When she returns, she is with the young, rich, but mysterious Ben. The tight tension among the three classifies this film as a mystery thriller, but it is still an extension of Lee Chang-dong’s world. Rather than directly burrowing into the inner life of the guilty, the camera sensitively captures the butterfly effect of everything surrounding guilt. The storyline is minimal, but filled with unbelievably dense scenes full of symbolic elements making up a tight-knit net of metaphors. The harmony of music and sound is exceptional. The film is a rare and valuable attempt by the director to disband this era’s mood of loss, anger, and chaos in filmic form and project it into an image. (Song Kyong Won)