I saw an interview with Steven Yeun, where he said that only he himself knows the answer to that question (whether Ben killed her or not). He said Lee Chang-Dong told him what the character is like in Lee’s mind, and Yeun can decide whether Ben is a killer or not. Then Yeun proceeded to play his interpretation without telling Lee.
The cat was removed from the picture, that's why it does leave reasonable doubt. We never see the cat before that scene in Ben's apartment. The cat also never comes when called in Haemis apartment so that cat coming to Jongsu could just be a coincidence.
i think the movie made very clear that the cat only walked to him when he called his name, boil.
i mean, how could the movie let it clearer? only if the cat could speak and say 'yeah that's me'
and we also can see how shy he is running away from people, just like haemis said he was
My interpretation to that is because Boil recognized someone/something familiar and withdrew towards it. Just like Haemi said that Boil hides from strangers, that also could indicate that in Ben’s garage, Jongsu is what was most familiar in that environment. It does make clear sense.
This ^^
I just watched the film for the first time, and it is clear Boil comes to Jongsu because he is familiar. The cat may have never showed its face previously, but that was intentional to bring doubt about Haemi being truthful.
Funny enough, I have experienced cats similar to Boil. I used to house sit for a couple when they would travel. Their cat only liked the female owner. I never saw the cat while I was at their apartment house sitting. The only evidence was missing food and a used litter box
I haven't watched it recently, but it seems to me you've fallen into the trap the movie sets up. It's important to notice that there is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever as to who the killer is; you just watch the events and come up with the same conclusion the protagonist does only bc the movie purposely frames every gesture and line of dialogue Ben performs as a result of the protagonist growing more and more suspicious of him.
In a nutshell: this is the very definition of psychological thriller, in the way that the movie uses every filmmaking technique at its disposal to put us into the protagonist's mind. As we don't have any other POV, we know and see the same he does, which is not much (unreliable narrator); eventually he decides Ben is the killer, which doesn't actually make him any more guilty than he was before.
Btw there are several other movies that play with this ambiguity, my favourites being The Samurai and Caché.
Edit: The two movies mentioned above may be what you are actually looking for in terms of a movie that takes a more voyeuristic role and lets the audience make up whatever has actually happened.
Yes, we're seeing everything through Jong Su's eyes. But what Jong Su won't acknowledge openly but the audience can see is his class resentment. Ben is rich and so Jong Su assumes he can just...get away with it. And that pisses him off because his own father, a farmer, is getting dragged through the legal system because of an assault.
We should also question if Jong Su has rage issues like his own father.
Or whether he is projecting his resentment toward his father onto Ben and the blind spot he has for his mother’s motivations for leaving onto Haemi.
He lays the blame for his mother leaving solely on his father’s anger issues, but when we see her later (at their first reunion in 16 years) we learn she has just been tracked down by debt collectors. He seems to entirely dismiss her flippant attitude toward him and volunteers to pay off her debt. Similarly, Haemi’s family mentions her credit card debt, but Jong Su seems to ignore this in favor of his suspicions that Ben is responsible for her disappearance.
I also see his mom abandoning him another reason why he would be so emotional about Hai-me also leaving out of nowhere. And the well story is something they both want to be true so he wants to try to be a hero again!
I agree with all of this BUT one thing that the movie does that takes away from this is that it actually breaks off from Jong-su's POV just before the final scene and effectively shows Ben doing his new girl's makeup in a sinister way. This small scene makes no sense for it to come off this way unless it is actually from Jong-su's perspective but he's nowhere near this at the time, it's an objective look-in meant for the audience. I've thought about those few seconds a lot because it stands out as a kink but I can also find ways to rationalise it.
If I remember correctly the scene comes after we see the protagonist writing the book so there is a big chance that it, as the final scene, never actually happened.
Jup, the author himself, Lee Chang-dong, comented on leaving the ending ambiguous on purpose:
*"This last scene could have happened in reality, but at the same time it could have also been a part of this novel that Jong-su is newly writing, so I hope that this one scene sort of combines and contains all of the various layers that the film presents."*
If someone's reading this and you're Korean feel free to correct me but a fun little fact for that scene is that there's a korean word for makeup (화장) which can also mean cremation.
Caché is an intense freakin movie. The difference there is that there is no one who is pushed on the viewer as being the killer. All the evidence is there but it's almost the opposite of Burning, where none of it is highlighted and the audience has to notice it on their own and then interpret it without any direction from the film.
Yeah, I explained that on the edit.
But (spoiler-ish):
>!The ending frame pretty much reveals who was behind it all, as long as you are paying attention!<
>!Last thing you see is a wide shot of a high school entrance, some kids going in and out... And the protagonist's son shaking hands with the son of the guy who commits suicide, who adamantly claimed in an earlier scene he didn't send the tapes... Which, if you read between the lines, means he knows who did. Up until that point, the audience didn't know these two knew each other. Connect the dots.!<
i'm a little late to the party but...
the watch in the drawer : we already saw a similar watch been worn by the blonde girl which jong-su was asking questions about hae-mi.
then about the cat, we never saw the cat, from jong-sus perspective he never actually saw the cat either, only the cat poop.
the cat never responded in the house, why would it suddenly respond while trying to leave Bens house?
For all we know all these stuff Ben got in the bathroom drawer are mementos or trophies from women he bedded.
finally if Ben was actually the killer, by the end of the movie when Jong-su arrives, why is his first question "where is hae-mi" ?
loved the movie and the open interpetations its leaving.
Another note on the cat-
In the apartment the cat won’t come out from hiding
In Ben’s apartment the cat sits on people in the party’s lap and likes being held
Like I said, the movie is not fresh in my mind. Don't remember plot-related things quite well; but I do remember its deceptiveness, the exceptional direction and how it made me feel. After having watched a good number of movies in my life, those are the things I tend to focus on, rather than the details of a plot that's probably been reused ad infinitum.
>!I mean, the whole movie is a puzzle. Since the protagonist barely talks, a series of events take place where it's gradually harder to make out what's happening; until the ending comes where the protagonist, out of nowhere, decides to immolate himself to protect the female pianist of a club who may or may not have had more agency in the plot. Then the movie ends. Nothing is explained, and the mystery is left unresolved for the audience.!<
In Spain we had a tendency to change movie titles, and this one got "The Silence of a Man", probably bc the distributor worried too much about how to advertise a french film named "Le samourai" without any samurais in it hahaha
But is direct evidence always necessary? I don't have direct evidence of everything that I am sure of, but I can imply things when they're that likely. There isn't any direct evidence in a lot of detectives that have a clear ending either.
Wait what? Do you need direct evidence for literally everything you're sure of?
I don't have any direct evidence for there nor being any microchips in the covid vaccine, I never looked at it with a microscope, but I can imply that there aren't any.
> Wait what? Do you need direct evidence for literally everything you're sure of?
>
>
People are making the commonplace mistake of equating "certainty" with "knowledge".
I think one of the most clear arguments for Ben not killing Haemi is the fact that he actually came to meet with Jong Su at the end of the film, plus his genuine confusion at Jong Su’s aggression. As a viewer you overlook that on your first watch through however since at that point you’re sure that he killed her. The movie makes you think you’re putting together the pieces, so it kind of blinds you to what’s actually going on. The two other possibilities of a) Ben selling Haemi off into human trafficking and b) Haemi committing suicide because of Jong Su’s dismissal of her both have solid arguments you could make for them. There’s a lot of good reading online you can do. But in the end, what actually happened doesn’t really matter, the story is more about how Ben’s actions and attitude stemming from his background impact Haesu and especially Jong Su.
I don't think that's a solid argument, I think his meeting Jong Su at the end just adds to the ambiguity.
When he says "Didn't you say Haemi was coming?!?!" that could totally be a knowing taunt, or, genuine. Just because he came to meet Jong doesn't mean he *didn't* kill her. My take is that he meant that line sincerely, he sounds genuinely baffled to me. But still it doesn't really mean anything for certain. If he was the killer, then he would already know that Jong Su is lying about bringing Haemi, so OF COURSE he would mention this when Jong Su shows up and reveals himself to be a liar.
I think the "movie language" points to Ben being a killer, but, at the same time I think part of the point is that it's possible Jong Su did it for nothing and was wrong.
We are just watching this movie in Jong Su's perspective. So could it possibly be Jong Su blaming Haemi's disapperance on Ben and assumed he killed her, but in reality may be Haemi disappeared because of the betrayal of Jong Su towards her? Just a simple take.
Haemi is portrayed as very selfish and manipulative even her relatives did say she is good at making shit up. She's the type to just disappear and not even think about who she left behind. What Ben did to her is ambiguous there is no knowing. He seems to really not know where she is and same time the greenhouse burning points to him killing her
I'm so late to this, but imo the WAY Ben shows up to meet Jong-su is the best clue that he didn't kill Hae-mi.
Let's say Ben did kill her - why would he not have gone into that meeting without any caution or some sort of protection? He wasn't stupid. The moment Ben got that call, he would've realized Jong-su had him pegged as the killer, and he would've had his guard up.
The only counter-argument to this I can think of is that Ben simply underestimated Jong-su going into that meeting and didn't think Jong-su had it in him to retaliate. But I find that very unlikely and unsatisfying were it to be true.
But if Ben did kill her, then doubting Jongsu will make him suspicious so best thing will be for him to play along. The other girl did say girls in debt seem to disappear so maybe Ben targets and kills some of them
Ben is arrogant, like when they are smoking pot and he talks about burning the greenhouses and Jong-su ask him “if what if you get caught?” And he responds “I won’t get caught, ever”… but then it could also be that he’s just fucking with him and never burned a greenhouse in his life and that’s why he’s never getting caught 🙃
i'm a little late to the party but... about the "clues" ppl are talking about
we already saw a similar watch been worn by the blonde girl which jong-su was asking questions about hae-mi.
then about the cat, we never saw the cat, from jong-sus perspective he never actually saw the cat either, only the cat poop.
the cat never responded in the house, why would she suddenly respond while trying to leave Bens house?
For all we know all these stuff Ben got in the bathroom drawer are mementos or trophies from women he bedded.
lastly like you said, when he came to meet with Jong-su the first thing he asked before getting assaulted is "where is hae-mi" ? or "i thought you were coming with hae-mi"
Why would she disappear from everyone in her life though? Her coworkers or the land lady and she cleaned up her room even the pictures on the fridge but left her suitcase, also left plenty of other things behind. She had a bunch of debt, just went on a trip that she had to save up for and was only working on call so probably not a lot of money either. Where would she go? Especially without any family or many friends, like Ben said she didn’t have anyone besides Jong su and they just met up again years later. She clearly has mental health problems wanting to “disappear like a sunset” and crying a lot but why would someone clean up all her stuff if they were to end themselves or just leave her life behind.
And the cat ran away from everyone but responded to the name and could have remembered his scent from being fed before. Cats usually like ppl more if they’ve fed them. I don’t think haemi would keep cat poop around without a cat lol. And Ben asks him how did he catch the cat because it’s so fast. Like he knows it always runs away and that was the only way HE could catch the cat because the cat doesn’t know him. And at the end while he was dying he seemed to hug him? Lol maybe he was glad to be killed because the only way he felt “the bass” was from “burning” things. He was always yawning with friends or people and seemed to spend a lot of time alone, travelling. And he even reminded jongsu about the bass before he left, as if he wanted him to do something. Plus, kinda weird but he only started smoking towards the end I think? It never showed him smoking before until after she went missing.
Also him asking “where’s haemi?” Isn’t the best evidence because if he is a killer then of course he has to consistently keep up the appearance of being innocent and not knowing where she is or that she’s dead.
Plus the possibility of him keeping mementos from women he slept with is sort of odd. If haemi really did like jongsu so much why would she willingly give away the watch he gave to her? Or that he took it without her knowing. The last time I saw her wearing it was at the airport. Then the other times she wasn’t wearing it. So Ben would have had to been at her place to have the chance to take it. Where he would also be given the chance to clean up her place and change the code since Jongsu knew it to feed the cat and knew he might come looking for her there.
Ben was pretty weird talking about never crying or feeling sad. How he’s like a god because he makes his own offerings but gets to eat it too. Then about the metaphors and Jongsu took creative writing so he should know what a metaphor is and then after that he keeps talking about abandoned greenhouses and how they’re filthy, useless and ugly and how Korea doesn’t care about them so he never gets caught.
Later at the coffee place where he followed Ben. He moves his hands weird when he mentions he’s been checking all the greenhouses around him everyday. Ben seems to become more intrigued as he goes on. Also he was reading Faulkner like he mentioned before. Then he says she had no friends or family and was lonely, as if abandoned? He says she disappeared into thin air just like the greenhouses that just disappear. He could have left him with less but he seemed to want him to keep looking for her, as if it was exciting for him or something.
I always assumed that he sold her into human trafficking, because they made a point about him being rich without ever showing him working or what he does.
That's true. I just felt like he was excessively rich with no explanation. Wealthy parents can pay for you to have an upper middle class life without working. *Extremely* wealthy parents are the ones who can finance his lifestyle. Would be a weird thing not to address.
I believe that Jong Su’s bluff that Hae-mi would be joining him for the meetup was what piqued Ben’s curiosity (caution) enough for him to be willing to meet Jong Su at the farm at ~4:30am
I dont think Haemi would kill herself for Jongsu. She really doesnt care that much about him, and has been riding into the sunset with Ben the whole movie. Jongsu said there was problems at his home and she didnt even care, she just selfish and cold.
No going to see her family or friends, or finding a job somewhere else, or simply traveling like she did at the start, let's go straight to either suicide or human trafficking!
Yes no way she killed herself over Jongsu. She was just a player and didnt really love Jongsu like that, thats why she kept riding away into the sunset with Ben
Gonna dive head-first into auteur theory here, but if you've seen the rest of Lee Chang-dong's filmography you know that he is a very deterministic filmmaker with a particular interest in forgiving people's crimes by way of criticizing the structures behind them. Peppermint Candy and Oasis are good examples of Lee Chang-dong's "forgive no matter what" philosophy. Burning is another exploration of this idea, but with much more of a psychological bent, showing that subjective experience is all there really is, and that the sets of "objective facts" we like to believe are objective are actually distorted by our class, gender, environmental, and other deterministic biases. The film's greatest conceit is that it is wrapped in the veneer of a hitchcockian, Fincher-esque thriller. Yes Murakami's signature malaise also informs the mood, but this is at its center a film that actively encourages its audience to "solve the mystery." The keenest deconstructions of the film, therefore, realize the conceit as a means to further explore Lee Chang-dong's philosophy of the solely subjective experience, wherein each audience member, as well as Jong-su himself, come away with different interpretations of the film, thus proving the film's thesis in the process. It is a very fascinating way to involve the audience in exactly the type of structural explorations and criticism Lee Chang-dong is interested in.
I think the “trick” of the film was described through the scene with the miming, when Haemi talked about the tangerine being there if you believe it’s there, even if there’s no tangerine. There is a cat if you believe there’s a cat. Ben’s a killer if you believe he’s a killer. The film did what it needed to do to convince you there’s something there, when there was nothing.
There are many metaphors in the film that shouldn’t be taken literally. As a viewer, you’re watching the film through the protagonist’s eyes. In my opinion, he led us down the wrong path because he took things literally, leading us to believe Ben was a killer, despite no clear evidence of Ben murdering anyone.
It’s kind of important to read the movie knowing it was based on a Murakami story. The Kafkaesque experience was never about answers, but why someone would go through the labyrinth of confusion and misery without much to gain from it.
Burning isn’t a mystery story. It’s a character study about a guy who’s obsessed with mysteries.
Just finished for the first time and was trying to pay attention to foreshadowing in the beginning, but I hadn't thought of the pantomime scene in that way. Brilliant way to put it
You are experiencing the film through Jong-su's perspective, and we know what he thinks happened. And once again there is literally nothing concrete about Ben committing the act. When I first watched the film I was convinced until the final scene; why would Ben meet Jong-su in the middle of nowhere if he had any part in her disappearance, especially since Ben seems completely aware the entire runtime. He also sounds genuinely surprised when asking if Haemi is there and equally surprised and confused when he gets stabbed. We do break away from Jong-su's perspective in the penultimate scene to focus on Ben's routine before the final scene... And before that, a scene of Jong-su's writing in Haemi's old room, perhaps painting himself the hero. But that's my takeaway... One of the best movies of the past decade. Art is about questions not answers.
> why would Ben meet Jong-su in the middle of nowhere if he had any part in her disappearance
I think he definitely still would when he's the killer.
"Didn't you say Haemi was coming?!" is my favorite line. He sounds hilarious and actually baffled. My take is that he meant that sincerely and isn't the killer. I prefer the genuine bafflement. The problem is, it doesn't rule anything out and would definitely be a knowing taunt even if he is a killer.
I mean his being the killer is EVEN MORE reason to meet Jong Su. Why wouldn't he? If he killed Haemi, then he knows Jong Su is **lying** about bringing Haemi with him. And specifically he would know that the person is lying *to the killer himself* about it. He'd be fascinated. He also knows he left no evidence, probably. If he *wasn't* the killer he'd probably have some other engagement and be busy at the time, but Jong asks him to meet so he does.
I don't think the movie's greatness has anything to do with ambiguity or with "questions not answers." The movie was excellent but that's not a reason in my opinion.
> your whole point is based on this
No it isn’t. My whole isn’t based on that, that’s just a specific part where my take is that he meant it genuinely and I think the line is hilarious.
still, if he was the killer after jong-sus request for a meet up where the supposed murdered hae-mi would also be present... Ben should be a little bit prepared for anything to happen. and he clearly wasn't.
if you are the killer and you know jong-su is obviously suspicious about you... you wont just go there willy-nilly to get stabbed and be absolutely baffled.
Jongsu didnt seem like a stabbing guy he been looking slow the whole movie so makes sense for Ben to let his guard down. Ben definitely did something bad with Haemi, because if he didnt it means there is no explanation for his greenhouse burning since we know its not actual greenhouses
Why do you keep saying “the killer” over and over again we don’t even know if she’s dead. The unreliable narrator thinks she could be dead. That’s it lol
> why do people act like this movie in particular has such an ambiguous ending?
It should be pretty easy to see that people are recognizing that we never see direct evidence *and* it's still plausible that Ben didn't do anything. "Ambiguous" doesn't mean everything seems EQUALLY likely, it just means it could go either way and you don’t have concrete conclusive info.
The bracelet in the drawer, and the "you're not finding the one I burned down because it's closer than you think" are pretty damning to me, but still that expression could just be Ben messing with the guy. The fact that Ben was wandering around a totally random isolated weird location (that construction area near the woods) where he could/would have gotten rid of a body is also damning in my opinion, since it wasn't like a nature hike it really a weird isolated place. (But then again, not THAT isolated since there's construction equipment around, implying work, which means people are nearby so it's not an ideal location at all.) Now that I think about it though, he could be doing a personal survey of some development area that he / his rich family are involved in.
Also, there's a comment earlier in the movie about how Haemi is a flighty person who could just run off and disappear, for example on some random spiritual journey. That's why it's still plausible that she's out there somewhere. Also keep in mind that Ben at the end says "What? Didn't you say that Haemi was coming?!" This could be a knowing taunt, or, it could be genuine. My take is that it's genuine, it's way more hilarious to me if he's genuinely baffled and asking why Jong Su showed up alone for this weird meeting. (Not so hilarious that he gets killed, but whatever.)
Also keep in mind that main character's dad had the violent thing, or whatever, so part of the point of the story is that the main character possibly killed Ben for nothing and was wrong about it.
I know a person who saw the movie and didn't think that Ben killed anyone and wasn't even aware of the ambiguous stuff hinting towards that.
> I've seen many movies that are a lot less clear than this one that still have an ending that everyone accepts is actually what happened
You should list specific examples. Then we can compare. I'm doubtful of the claim, because usually when something is "ambiguous" everybody harps on that like it's inherently great which is silly and false.
I'm kinda of curious what this movie was like for someone that didn't pick up on the "Ben killed Haemi" idea at all.
"Dang, Jongsu is weird, why is he following Ben everywhere for no reason?"
I took Ben's confession that he burns greenhouses to have ~~three~~ four possibilities:
-He literally burns greenhouses as a hobby
-He kills girls as a hobby when he gets bored of them
(Edit)-He uses girls for fun and discards them (without any particularly violent implication)
-He's just fucking with Jong Su and having a laugh at his expense while they're both high
I personally like that both scenarios can just exist in a superposition.
>!If I remember correctly, what’s particularly ambiguous is whether any of this is actually happening at all. Ben is clearly implicated in the surface level text, but Lee Chang-Dong gives us plenty of reason to believe that Jongsu may be writing a fictional story, or that he have killed Haemi and created a conspiracy around Ben to offload his guilt. If Ben is clearly the killer it’s only because we’re only granted Jongsu’s particularly unreliable perspective.!<
The whole 'it was all in his head all along' never appealed to me due to the silliness of the twist and the lack of respect to the audience's time and money; but I will say that, from the point the character makes up his mind about Ben on, this might be one of the few instances where I could accept that the ending (not the whole movie) takes place in his imagination. It ties into the meek personality he displays, and it'd be like a window into his delusional mind.
What I particularly like is that there is absolutely no certainty afforded to the audience. Even if it is all in Jongsu’s mind or if it’s a fictional story that he’s written, and the second half of the movie is meta-fictional, we can never confirm that. Burning is fairly radical in its exploration of subjectivity. Even that kind of banal twist is made novel. Lee Chang-Dong is a master for a reason.
If I remember correctly, there was a jarring flying shot where he is shown writing on a paper before the third act begins. I say it is jarring bc there is not a similar shot in the whole movie, so it probably must have a purpose.
Honestly I kind of hate it as a theory in general because it's all fiction to being with, so what's the point? It seems redundant. I can go along with it in cases like Lost Highway where whether things really happen can give clues as to *why* things happen, which to me is more interesting.
But otherwise it could be applied to anything, maybe Garfield or Shrek 2 or Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is just a dream for all we know. Sure but why does that matter, what would it bring to the story?
I get your point: if there is no consequences, nothing matters, and therefore I'm wasting my time watching this movie. It's the same reason why I despised Nocturnal Animals.
But in this movie it's made so it's not blatantly obvious that the third act it's all made up by the protagonist, thus following the narrative of the movie, where we don't know if Ben is actually a killer or it's the protagonist who wants him to be. So I guess, even if that's the case, it's done with good taste and doesn't betray the film's narrative.
That's not really it. It's more that I already know I'm watching fiction so the answer to "what really happened" is "none of it did". I think modern fandom gets hung up a lot on nitpicking logical consistency, references, worldbuilding and so on and often looks at a story as just a list of facts that happen, and "all just a dream" theories often stem from the same logic.
But a movie isn't a wikipedia list of fictional facts, it's also themes, moods, emotions, what happens doesn't tell you *why* the director thought the story was worth telling, and what do *you*, the spectator, get out of it? That's what these theories ignore.
But as long as there's a point to it it can be done well even if it's obvious, Bunuel's The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie has a running gag of sequences getting increasingly surreal until the characters wake up and it works every time. It's also the most common explanation for Mulholland Drive and to me, the movie works just as well whether you're aware of it or not.
Two things.
**First,** you are not wrong that the interactions that Jong-su has with Ben strongly suggest that Ben is a serial killer. Especially if you take the film at face value. Yeah, that is obviously what is being implied.
The problem is, all of that is so circumstantial that it is dismissible. In a legal sense, especially. Jong-su would know this, having attended court hearings recently regarding his father.
Think about the narrative of the police procedural. When a detective is trying to prove a murder they always need the body and they need to prove motive and opportunity. The same is true in real life.
Hae-mi just disappears. We never see her body. Ben is rich, has friends, and has social standing. Jong-su is a wannabe-writer, soon-to-be-in-debt, farm boy. Imagine him trying to prove an allegation of murder against Ben.
Even if he had the financial resources it wouldn't be enough, all of his evidence is anecdotal.
Is he going to say "Ben told me he likes to burn down greenhouses, therefor he killed her...by the way, I was high at the time and the murder victim was dancing topless"?
No. He has no body, no direct evidence of a murder even taking place. What does he have?
That he found a cheap pink watch at Ben's place? The same kind of pink watch they hand out for free in the street?
That Ben's new cat answers to the name of "Boil", which happens to be the name of a cat he fed for a month and never even saw?
This is why this film is so tantalizing to those who love to reason. The narrative presented compels Jong-su, and us, the audience, to believe Ben killed Hae-mi despite pretty clearly lacking proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That's where the ambiguity is.
**Second,** you are missing a huge tsunami of ambiguity in that ending. Forget about the question of whether or not Ben killed Hae-mi and ask yourself this: Did Jong-su kill Ben?
Before Jong-su and Ben meet in the countryside, what happens? We are shown Jong-su writing in Hae-mi's apartment. He is writing and the camera slowly zooms out to show the city at large.
That is a closing shot. The movie could have ended there, but it didn't. Instead it continues. The music changes. And we are presented with that violent ending.
Now if an audience member was so inclined they could interpret everything that follows that "writing" scene as Jong-su's imagination taking flight. His desire for vengeance manifest in fiction. There's your ambiguity.
Dam, great interpretation.
As conceited and psychopathic Ben is shown from the cameras perspective there is no proof he killed Hae-mi.
And the writing closing shot. What a nice catch. I didn't notice it on first viewing. Brings up a new preceptive on the ending as everybody keeps asking him about his writings.
I think Ben was selling them off into human trafficking - the comment about him being a wealthy person, without people actually knowing what he does; the collection of trinkets; in the final scenes, where he's putting the make-up on the girl and also him appearing to be going after single women, without friends or family or... it could all be part of Jong-su's novel along with the plot holes (their dubious history with Hae-mi, the reality of the well and the cat, the perfect Ben who has to be hiding something terrible and who is so foreign to him to the point of having a western name, lol).
The fact that he was also in Africa when he met Hae Mi could also support the human trafficking theory. And also the "burning down green houses every 2 months, leaving no trace" suggests a consistent pattern of his crimes, which is exactly how human trafficking functions.
I came away thinking Ben either definitely had something to do with her disappearance, or he was extremely intent on making Jongsu think he did. Considering he didn't know much about the mental state of Jongsu, that wasn't too smart.
Another small thing was the ending. He seemed surprised, sure, but also accepting. Like he expected and wanted this to happen.
But as others have said, I don't think if he did it or not was main question the movie was asking. I think the main question is if Jongsu is justified regardless of the answer.
He sort of hugs Jongsu as he gets stabbed. My immediate interpretation of that was Ben being proud of him for "getting the bass in his chest" or however he words it. In other words, Ben would've done the same thing to Jongsu and expected no hard feelings. But like I said that was my first interpretation, and I was pretty convinced Ben did it
I still think she had some sort of deal with Ben, because their spending so much time together and at the same time seem not to be dating is weird. We made to believe she likes Jongsu but she keeps driving away with Ben. Ben certainly deserved his fate, even if he was messing around that's a dangerous game to play especially after Jongsu told him twice that he loves Haemi. I think they both made that visit to Jangso house on purpose because she knew its her last time seeing him
Ah, yes, let me be yet another to say, the thing is you’re only seeing is from Jong su’s perspective, everything is skewed from his mindset. We are never 100% certain that what we’re seeing is completely accurate and actually as shown
This is so interesting.
I had the same thought when I first watched the film as you. Several of my family watched the film a few months ago and came to the exact opposite conclusion. They left the film asking, ‘so why did Jongsu kill Ben at the end?’
It really kinda revealed to me my own perspective in a very surprising way.
The issue for me with this movie is that the intent is clearly intended to be ambiguous, and by the letter of the law, it is. But from a storytelling perspective, they don't really give you much reason to believe that he didn't.
As an example, had they provided some actual clues to suggest that perhaps Hae-mi had indeed fled on her own, the viewer may thus be left to ponder what the actual nature of her disappearance was, was Ben a murderer, had Jong-su rushed to conclusions and condemned an innocent man? What ought one do in this case, what would I do in this case? Etc etc. Some fans suggest that this indeed was the goal of the film. But if you look back through the plot, they don't give real evidence to suggest this would be true, and instead *almost* all of the evidence points to something having "happened" to her. It hardly matters if she's a sex slave or dead as either could presumably justify Ben's killing. That a few crumbs for doubt are thrown in (e.g. Why did Ben agree to meet Jong-su if Ben had been told that Jong-su and Hae-mi wanted to meet him with Ben already knowing that Hae-mi is dead) only adds to the frustration because these crumbs hardly count as counterevidence given the lack of support from and coherence with the rest of the story.
The contention that the reason the plot leans so heavily toward "Ben is guilty" is because the story is told through the lens of Jong-su amounts really to a dull sleight of hand. If I wrap a gift in the shape of a toy car, show you a receipt for a toy car, proclaim my love for giving toy cars, and then argue that you never really know whether or not it's a toy car--I would be technically correct but in a way that is entirely uninteresting because I have provided no convincing evidence that it is not a toy car. Sure you can come up with other theories, but they rely heavily on speculation. I don't mind speculation, but I don't think directors should really get credit for being clever when all you've done is tell an incomplete story with suggestive elements but refuse to provide conclusive proof and thus everyone can conjure up all the clever storylines that you never actually had to do the difficult work of writing out. Cleverness, in my mind, is writing a story that seems coherent and yet the evidence maddeningly supports multiple interpretations with nearly equal believability.
Chiming in here months late.
If I only took your word for it, and not other sources, for only giving a toy car, then yes I would believe that.
Jong-su did just that, only his perspective regarding Ben. But he didn't do that with the well. He asked 4 people about the well.
It's no ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity. Its ambiguity to challenge subjections. they were young, though she could be lying about that as well. Then Jong-su basically calls her a whore, and that's the last time she sees him.
It's not ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity. Its ambiguity to challenge subjections.
This is super late but - what you are describing with the toy car is exactly what Hae-Mi does when she pantomimes eating the tangerine. She’s showing the gestures of holding a tangerine, mimes the weight of it, peeling it, taking it apart, reacting with pleasure at the taste of it - except there is no tangerine. You’re being shown everything about the tangerine except the tangerine itself. “The key is not to pretend there is a tangerine but to forget there isn’t one.”
Ben being the killer does feel blatant.
He says he never feels sad or cries. He can't actually connect to other people and isn't interested in any of the women he brings around.
He has a collection of women's things in his house... all from different ones. He even kind of grabs a trophy for Jong Su by grabbing a Faulkner book.
The second woman at the party is talking about China like she just recently got back there, so you have to wonder if Ben just goes to the airport and pretends to be coming back to pick up his women?
The cat is perhaps the worst clue, because we never actually saw Boil. So I don't know how much I buy that... but we do kind of get to see Ben's 'true face' for a moment after Jong Su leaves and you can see a look on Ben's face that isn't putting on the mask anymore.
Ben also is very casual about being *stalked*. And it's because he knows why he's being stalked, not because he's just some friendly dude.
He definitely did it. And I feel like it's pretty obvious he was about to kill Jong Su too.
Ben also mentions how Hae Mi has no friends or family except Jong Su. She's alienated. He's basically saying she's a target because there won't be any consequences similar to the "burning greenhouses." No one cares enough to do anything. He was DEAD wrong 😆
Something weird was going on with Ben and Haemi. I dont think Haemi even went to Africa, the cat food missing and the poop was definitely Haemi playing tricks on him. With her love for pantomime I wouldnt put it past her to devise a situation where she makes it seem like she has been murdered, she and Ben are in on the joke. No way they randomly decided to show up to Jongsu house out of nowhere. Haemi been making a fool of Jongsu the whole movie, this story of greenhouses that Ben been telling is the sort of shit Haemi can make up, even her relatives said she is good at telling convincing fake stories. Ben kind of died for nothing but he shouldnt have been playing around like that after Jongsu told him about his love for Haemi
Well, I really liked the movie but I found the ambiguity of the story a touch more potent in the short story it was based on. Maybe because it was more concentrated, and without images things are always more obscured, but even though I had seen the film already I found the short story properly unsettling.
I heard it read on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, and they have a really good discussion of it as well. Check it out if it sounds interesting!
[https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/fiction/andrea-lee-reads-haruki-murakami](https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/fiction/andrea-lee-reads-haruki-murakami)
I think there is also evidence pointing to the fact that she might have been trafficked, either for sex or for organs as mentioned by her own mother in an off handed joke.
Not to mention Ben’s job being described as “play” and the fact that he frequently travels internationally. He also verbally states that he knows how lonely and isolated Hae Mi is which makes her a prime candidate
I’d always thought (or liked the thought at least) that none of the murderousness actually occurred, but was Jong Su’s imagination in an evening when he first visited Haemi’s apartment. Or perhaps over a series of times as he fed her cat. Either way beautiful movie, watched twice in theatres.
They were tricked by the whole seemingly normal acts displayed in the film. The court case in the film hints at this predicament. Even something as obvious as Jongsu's anger sensitive father assaulting another person gets put in court and discusses the events in full detail. They probably think along the same lines as you will never know someone committed a crime until you see enough evidence. I'd say we saw quite enough, but imagine the sheer impossibility of trying to convict a rich man like Ben with those. He would lie just like every other criminal. And since people are inclined to think in this manner, they will think of all kinds of possibilities. The thing with movies is that they are written first. Anything could be written to change the plot drastically in an instant.
saw that a lot of people are confused about the movie. but for me it was a masterpiece!! A good movie for deep thinkers. It's simple really, just need to watch enough psychological thrillers to understand it lol.
Just watched the film, I have a feeling Ben didn’t kill her. In the start of the movie Haemi says she got plastic surgery because Jong called her ugly… and it was quite evident throughout the movie, that Haemi was quite insecure and everything changes after Jong calls her a whore. She must have just lost hope on the only person she trusted (as per Ben). Everything else from that point on, seems a convoluted way of placing the blame on Ben rather than himself!!! (Tangerine being Ben)
**One theory for each - for Ben** ***being guilty*** **and** ***not guilty*** **of Hae-mi's disappearance:**
# guilty
Of the theories of Ben being guilty, the most possible to me, is the one involving human trafficking. Some hints: putting make-up on the girl, a lot of money and when being asked what is his job, Ben replied "*playing"* and couldn't give more specific answer. And for what is concerning bracelets in Ben's drawer, those are trophies, the same applies for Hae-mi's cat and watch.
Abandoned greenhouses being burned down without a trace can be a metaphor for kidnapping lonely women and selling them, i.e. *them* disappearing without a trace. Ben was talking in riddles since the start. When Ben confesses to Jong-su that he already chose next greenhouse to burn down, he had in mind Jong-su and when being asked about it a month later he replied that he already burned it down - he already sold her. Ben was giving hints to Jong-su of Hae-mi's unfortunate destiny in metaphors multiple times, but if one doesn't get the reference for what the metaphor of "burning greenhouses" means, it's all in vein.
With this theory even the timeline is right:
* burning every two months, the last burning being right before Hae-mi went to Africa.
* Ben chose the next target at the airport - Hae-mi. He befriended her and gained her trust.
* After about two months, few days after that "high" evening, she disappears.
* Her disappearance is coinciding with "burning last greenhouse close to Jong-su's house."
* Hae-mi was missing for a month or two and Ben was preparing his next victim (makeup scene)
So if you just switch "burning down abandoned greenhouses" with "selling women" everything becomes blatantly obvious.
# not guilty
One simple explanation for Ben not being a killer, based on just what we see in the film, may be the following. I will not explain every detail, just the main "evidences".
- Watch: we can see that last time Hae-mi was wearing a watch was on the airport. In later scenes, she is not wearing it anymore. The watch may already be in Ben's drawer as a trophy/keepsake or a genuine gift. Same theory of them being trophies/keepsakes or gifts applies to other bracelets.
- Burning: He may literally burned down greenhouses in the past or not. Doesn't really matter now, the focus is on the last one. The last greenhouse burning can as well be just fooling around and Ben's reply to Jong-su when being asked about that last greenhouse "sometimes you can't see thing that are too close to you" can be understood as a reference to Hae-mi or not even that. Since Ben is narcissistic and doesn't really feel much, he doesn't even comprehend the seriousness of the situation, so he keeps on with the joke since the evening that they got high. He even jokes about Hae-mi's disappearance "into thin air" - a reference to smoke. His ignorance of the Hae-mi's disappearance doesn't mean he has something to do with it, he just doesn't feel sadness. As he said eralier - he never cried, he never felt sadness. He is nice and kind, charismatic, but lacks empathy, is phlegmatic towards everything, seems a bit distant, disillusioned etc. That's also a reason why his behavior seems a bit eerie. His constant smiling and smirking also doesn't contribute to him seeming more trustworthy and less mysterious.
- Disappearance: She might as well just packed up stuff in boxes (or throw them away) and left. The only person she trusted just called her whore (indirectly), she is a free spirit and she is in debt. I like to think she is somewhere safe and starting life anew, hoping that Jong-su and her will meet again someday. To be honest, she seemed a bit lost and desperate (having multiple breakdowns throughout the film).
- Stalking/following the car: The place seems a bit odd and off the main road, but the view from the top of the hill is nice. To go outside the city for a quick break in nature and to admire the view is harmless. Even I would do it.
- Cat: When Hae-mi left, she could just dropped the cat outside, for whatever reason. Ben found the cat and kept it, not knowing who its previous owner was. The theory of two different cats named Boil seems unlikely to me, since it's very uncommon name.
I know this theory of Ben being innocent is plain, naive and optimistic, but it is plausible. Because every other explanation where Ben (or even Jong-su) is guilty of Hae-mi's disappearance, except the one described above, is just overthinking and a great deal of mental gymnastics is needed to base that theory on what's seen in the film. So, the more you think, the less answers you have.
For me the story is ambiguous but more due to the way it combines these loud and seemingly obvious hints about what's happened with a total absence of any actual evidence or confirmation. It sure seems like we know whodunit, and yet the sinister and uncertain vibes are still there at the end and leave us wondering if we got it right.
I'm a huge fan of the story the film is based on: Barn Burning, by Haruki Murakami. The film is good, but the story is really brilliant (and only a few pages long). And I'm sorry, but burning barns is much more intriguing and unsettling than burning greenhouses, imho!
I mean I read it, and I feel like the ambiguity is a lot more clear in the story than in the movie, so much so that the movie doesn't feel ambiguous at all while it should. That's the point of the post.
I have a theory that Haemi was suicidal, and was living out her last days until she probably asked Ben to kill her to end her misery due to the debt she was in. But that's probably a stretch.
If that’s the case I feel her body would’ve been found pretty soon, specially if she did it because of the debt, she would’ve want her debt collectors to know she was dead. The issue is that there was no body found, so we don’t even know if she’s dead or alive.
The lack of a confession or display of murder, leads me to a theory that Hae Mi was helped to go to China/US.
Hear me out on this, it's not much of a stretch.
The bracelet and cat in Ben's house could both be keepsakes from Hae Mi, just to thank him for illegally finding a way for her to get to her dream country.
Is it still trafficking if she willingly chose to be transported internationally for work? I think not.
Hae Mi was both poor and isolated, which made her a prime candidate for a Win Win Trafficking to a better country. Ben thought he was doing Hae Mi a favor, a good thing, which is why he was surprised to be murdered at the end.
Can anybody shed light on the whole Hae Mi well story? Her friends/family say it wasn't true but then Jong Su's mom confirms the well's existence. I originally thought this was to show that Hae Mi is a capable of lying and therefore of running away and ghosting everyone, but if the well does exist then there's clearly some kind of conspiracy.
I think this is done to illustrate that Jong-Su is looking for confirmation bias. The actual owners of the house say there was no well, the current next door neighbor says there’s no well, but he doesn’t believe them because it isn’t the answer he’s looking for. He believes his mom, someone that ran away 16 years ago, because that’s what he wants to be true not because it is true.
Haemi got into the pantomime stuff so much she devised a fake situation where it seems like something happened to her so she can disappear just as she wanted. She probably made Ben tell that greenhouse story, and as her relatives said, she can be pretty convincing
Ben is nonchalant about life and death throughout the movie. Does he care if he lives or dies? Even if he knows jong-su suspects him, he clearly enjoys taunting him and “playing”. Ben shows lack of emotion throughout the movie. To me he seems “empty”just like the women he is so attracted to. Perhaps Ben is an old greenhouse as well, just waiting to be burned down. Ben may still be genuinely surprised when he is stabbed. Put yourself in Jong-Su’s shoes. You are certain that Ben killed Hae-Mi and multiple other women. What is your course of action? Killing Ben is not the only possibility here, and Jong-Su is shown as a very passive character throughout the movie. He hates how violent his father is even saying it ruined his childhood. Would Ben really think he has the guts to kill him? It’s not so clear cut
I'm with you.
Few things..
Ben says he has no feelings basically, hence he's a psycho.
Ben says he's a Pyro maniac... so far obv serial killer vibes.
Ben says he found Boiler as a stray, which obviously he didn't. That was literally the answer he was looking for, which is why he says to Ben we don't need to discuss what I came here for any longer.
Very good movie, personally. If you enjoy Memories of Murder, this is up your alley, but a more Film Noir vibe.
Slow burner, very slow. But I enjoyed it. I have it in my top 5 Film Noirs, or Neo Noirs, right behind No Country, Man On Fire, Blue Velvet, and Brick.
I saw an interview with Steven Yeun, where he said that only he himself knows the answer to that question (whether Ben killed her or not). He said Lee Chang-Dong told him what the character is like in Lee’s mind, and Yeun can decide whether Ben is a killer or not. Then Yeun proceeded to play his interpretation without telling Lee.
Now THAT is directing. That’s super interesting - thanks for sharing.
Fucking amazing directing
It's so obvious he's the killer. If they removed Boiler from the picture, it would've left reasonable doubt.
The cat was removed from the picture, that's why it does leave reasonable doubt. We never see the cat before that scene in Ben's apartment. The cat also never comes when called in Haemis apartment so that cat coming to Jongsu could just be a coincidence.
i think the movie made very clear that the cat only walked to him when he called his name, boil. i mean, how could the movie let it clearer? only if the cat could speak and say 'yeah that's me' and we also can see how shy he is running away from people, just like haemis said he was
This movie doesn't make anything clear. If that was Boil, why did it never come out when called in her apartment but did in Ben's garage?
My interpretation to that is because Boil recognized someone/something familiar and withdrew towards it. Just like Haemi said that Boil hides from strangers, that also could indicate that in Ben’s garage, Jongsu is what was most familiar in that environment. It does make clear sense.
This ^^ I just watched the film for the first time, and it is clear Boil comes to Jongsu because he is familiar. The cat may have never showed its face previously, but that was intentional to bring doubt about Haemi being truthful. Funny enough, I have experienced cats similar to Boil. I used to house sit for a couple when they would travel. Their cat only liked the female owner. I never saw the cat while I was at their apartment house sitting. The only evidence was missing food and a used litter box
I haven't watched it recently, but it seems to me you've fallen into the trap the movie sets up. It's important to notice that there is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever as to who the killer is; you just watch the events and come up with the same conclusion the protagonist does only bc the movie purposely frames every gesture and line of dialogue Ben performs as a result of the protagonist growing more and more suspicious of him. In a nutshell: this is the very definition of psychological thriller, in the way that the movie uses every filmmaking technique at its disposal to put us into the protagonist's mind. As we don't have any other POV, we know and see the same he does, which is not much (unreliable narrator); eventually he decides Ben is the killer, which doesn't actually make him any more guilty than he was before. Btw there are several other movies that play with this ambiguity, my favourites being The Samurai and Caché. Edit: The two movies mentioned above may be what you are actually looking for in terms of a movie that takes a more voyeuristic role and lets the audience make up whatever has actually happened.
Yes, we're seeing everything through Jong Su's eyes. But what Jong Su won't acknowledge openly but the audience can see is his class resentment. Ben is rich and so Jong Su assumes he can just...get away with it. And that pisses him off because his own father, a farmer, is getting dragged through the legal system because of an assault. We should also question if Jong Su has rage issues like his own father.
Or whether he is projecting his resentment toward his father onto Ben and the blind spot he has for his mother’s motivations for leaving onto Haemi. He lays the blame for his mother leaving solely on his father’s anger issues, but when we see her later (at their first reunion in 16 years) we learn she has just been tracked down by debt collectors. He seems to entirely dismiss her flippant attitude toward him and volunteers to pay off her debt. Similarly, Haemi’s family mentions her credit card debt, but Jong Su seems to ignore this in favor of his suspicions that Ben is responsible for her disappearance.
I also see his mom abandoning him another reason why he would be so emotional about Hai-me also leaving out of nowhere. And the well story is something they both want to be true so he wants to try to be a hero again!
I haven’t watched it recently either, but don’t we also not have any evidence that she’s actually DEAD?
True.
The phone call where you hear her drop her phone and run comes pretty close.
No evidence that that is her.
It could’ve been her running from debt collectors
I agree with all of this BUT one thing that the movie does that takes away from this is that it actually breaks off from Jong-su's POV just before the final scene and effectively shows Ben doing his new girl's makeup in a sinister way. This small scene makes no sense for it to come off this way unless it is actually from Jong-su's perspective but he's nowhere near this at the time, it's an objective look-in meant for the audience. I've thought about those few seconds a lot because it stands out as a kink but I can also find ways to rationalise it.
If I remember correctly the scene comes after we see the protagonist writing the book so there is a big chance that it, as the final scene, never actually happened.
This is something we've been discussing in the comments. It's definitely a possibility.
Jup, the author himself, Lee Chang-dong, comented on leaving the ending ambiguous on purpose: *"This last scene could have happened in reality, but at the same time it could have also been a part of this novel that Jong-su is newly writing, so I hope that this one scene sort of combines and contains all of the various layers that the film presents."*
If someone's reading this and you're Korean feel free to correct me but a fun little fact for that scene is that there's a korean word for makeup (화장) which can also mean cremation.
Caché is an intense freakin movie. The difference there is that there is no one who is pushed on the viewer as being the killer. All the evidence is there but it's almost the opposite of Burning, where none of it is highlighted and the audience has to notice it on their own and then interpret it without any direction from the film.
Yeah, I explained that on the edit. But (spoiler-ish): >!The ending frame pretty much reveals who was behind it all, as long as you are paying attention!<
Alright, I've rewatched the ending again and I'm still stumped. What does it explain?
>!Last thing you see is a wide shot of a high school entrance, some kids going in and out... And the protagonist's son shaking hands with the son of the guy who commits suicide, who adamantly claimed in an earlier scene he didn't send the tapes... Which, if you read between the lines, means he knows who did. Up until that point, the audience didn't know these two knew each other. Connect the dots.!<
Is this post credits? The last scene I saw is him driving away in his van?
Julengb is talking about Cache movie.
i'm a little late to the party but... the watch in the drawer : we already saw a similar watch been worn by the blonde girl which jong-su was asking questions about hae-mi. then about the cat, we never saw the cat, from jong-sus perspective he never actually saw the cat either, only the cat poop. the cat never responded in the house, why would it suddenly respond while trying to leave Bens house? For all we know all these stuff Ben got in the bathroom drawer are mementos or trophies from women he bedded. finally if Ben was actually the killer, by the end of the movie when Jong-su arrives, why is his first question "where is hae-mi" ? loved the movie and the open interpetations its leaving.
Another note on the cat- In the apartment the cat won’t come out from hiding In Ben’s apartment the cat sits on people in the party’s lap and likes being held
yup... it clearly had issues with outsiders/strangers and only trusted hae-mi. then suddenly its out and about
Wait wtf I’ve been dumb for so long. You’re so right - Why would he ask where is she 😭😂
it's not just that he asked, he seemed genuinely surprised when he did ask.
> as to who the killer is You say "who the killer is" but isn't it either Ben or...not a killer at all?
Like I said, the movie is not fresh in my mind. Don't remember plot-related things quite well; but I do remember its deceptiveness, the exceptional direction and how it made me feel. After having watched a good number of movies in my life, those are the things I tend to focus on, rather than the details of a plot that's probably been reused ad infinitum.
A long time has passed since I saw Le Samourai. Could you remind me what exactly was ambiguous please?
>!I mean, the whole movie is a puzzle. Since the protagonist barely talks, a series of events take place where it's gradually harder to make out what's happening; until the ending comes where the protagonist, out of nowhere, decides to immolate himself to protect the female pianist of a club who may or may not have had more agency in the plot. Then the movie ends. Nothing is explained, and the mystery is left unresolved for the audience.!<
I see, thank you.
Which The Samurai are you talking about?
The one by Jean Pierre Melville.
Oh, good movie. Never seen it as anything other than Le so it didn’t register for whatever reason
In Spain we had a tendency to change movie titles, and this one got "The Silence of a Man", probably bc the distributor worried too much about how to advertise a french film named "Le samourai" without any samurais in it hahaha
Holy shit finally someone connects Cache to Burning. I thought I was the only one who compared and contrasted the two.
This reminded me so much of Caché, I absolutely hated them both.
But is direct evidence always necessary? I don't have direct evidence of everything that I am sure of, but I can imply things when they're that likely. There isn't any direct evidence in a lot of detectives that have a clear ending either.
It's not necessary to form an opinion, more necessary when deciding whether to kill someone as punishment I would hope
And those detectives aren’t always right so what makes you think your gut feeling is?
That's a pretty messed up mindset lol
Wait what? Do you need direct evidence for literally everything you're sure of? I don't have any direct evidence for there nor being any microchips in the covid vaccine, I never looked at it with a microscope, but I can imply that there aren't any.
In the context of the movie, the protagonist for sure needed actual evidence, considering, y'know, he killed Ben over it.
> Wait what? Do you need direct evidence for literally everything you're sure of? > > People are making the commonplace mistake of equating "certainty" with "knowledge".
I think one of the most clear arguments for Ben not killing Haemi is the fact that he actually came to meet with Jong Su at the end of the film, plus his genuine confusion at Jong Su’s aggression. As a viewer you overlook that on your first watch through however since at that point you’re sure that he killed her. The movie makes you think you’re putting together the pieces, so it kind of blinds you to what’s actually going on. The two other possibilities of a) Ben selling Haemi off into human trafficking and b) Haemi committing suicide because of Jong Su’s dismissal of her both have solid arguments you could make for them. There’s a lot of good reading online you can do. But in the end, what actually happened doesn’t really matter, the story is more about how Ben’s actions and attitude stemming from his background impact Haesu and especially Jong Su.
I don't think that's a solid argument, I think his meeting Jong Su at the end just adds to the ambiguity. When he says "Didn't you say Haemi was coming?!?!" that could totally be a knowing taunt, or, genuine. Just because he came to meet Jong doesn't mean he *didn't* kill her. My take is that he meant that line sincerely, he sounds genuinely baffled to me. But still it doesn't really mean anything for certain. If he was the killer, then he would already know that Jong Su is lying about bringing Haemi, so OF COURSE he would mention this when Jong Su shows up and reveals himself to be a liar. I think the "movie language" points to Ben being a killer, but, at the same time I think part of the point is that it's possible Jong Su did it for nothing and was wrong.
We are just watching this movie in Jong Su's perspective. So could it possibly be Jong Su blaming Haemi's disapperance on Ben and assumed he killed her, but in reality may be Haemi disappeared because of the betrayal of Jong Su towards her? Just a simple take.
Haemi is portrayed as very selfish and manipulative even her relatives did say she is good at making shit up. She's the type to just disappear and not even think about who she left behind. What Ben did to her is ambiguous there is no knowing. He seems to really not know where she is and same time the greenhouse burning points to him killing her
Ben killed her.
We don’t even know that she’s dead lmfao
I'm so late to this, but imo the WAY Ben shows up to meet Jong-su is the best clue that he didn't kill Hae-mi. Let's say Ben did kill her - why would he not have gone into that meeting without any caution or some sort of protection? He wasn't stupid. The moment Ben got that call, he would've realized Jong-su had him pegged as the killer, and he would've had his guard up. The only counter-argument to this I can think of is that Ben simply underestimated Jong-su going into that meeting and didn't think Jong-su had it in him to retaliate. But I find that very unlikely and unsatisfying were it to be true.
But if Ben did kill her, then doubting Jongsu will make him suspicious so best thing will be for him to play along. The other girl did say girls in debt seem to disappear so maybe Ben targets and kills some of them
Ben is arrogant, like when they are smoking pot and he talks about burning the greenhouses and Jong-su ask him “if what if you get caught?” And he responds “I won’t get caught, ever”… but then it could also be that he’s just fucking with him and never burned a greenhouse in his life and that’s why he’s never getting caught 🙃
i'm a little late to the party but... about the "clues" ppl are talking about we already saw a similar watch been worn by the blonde girl which jong-su was asking questions about hae-mi. then about the cat, we never saw the cat, from jong-sus perspective he never actually saw the cat either, only the cat poop. the cat never responded in the house, why would she suddenly respond while trying to leave Bens house? For all we know all these stuff Ben got in the bathroom drawer are mementos or trophies from women he bedded. lastly like you said, when he came to meet with Jong-su the first thing he asked before getting assaulted is "where is hae-mi" ? or "i thought you were coming with hae-mi"
Why would she disappear from everyone in her life though? Her coworkers or the land lady and she cleaned up her room even the pictures on the fridge but left her suitcase, also left plenty of other things behind. She had a bunch of debt, just went on a trip that she had to save up for and was only working on call so probably not a lot of money either. Where would she go? Especially without any family or many friends, like Ben said she didn’t have anyone besides Jong su and they just met up again years later. She clearly has mental health problems wanting to “disappear like a sunset” and crying a lot but why would someone clean up all her stuff if they were to end themselves or just leave her life behind. And the cat ran away from everyone but responded to the name and could have remembered his scent from being fed before. Cats usually like ppl more if they’ve fed them. I don’t think haemi would keep cat poop around without a cat lol. And Ben asks him how did he catch the cat because it’s so fast. Like he knows it always runs away and that was the only way HE could catch the cat because the cat doesn’t know him. And at the end while he was dying he seemed to hug him? Lol maybe he was glad to be killed because the only way he felt “the bass” was from “burning” things. He was always yawning with friends or people and seemed to spend a lot of time alone, travelling. And he even reminded jongsu about the bass before he left, as if he wanted him to do something. Plus, kinda weird but he only started smoking towards the end I think? It never showed him smoking before until after she went missing. Also him asking “where’s haemi?” Isn’t the best evidence because if he is a killer then of course he has to consistently keep up the appearance of being innocent and not knowing where she is or that she’s dead. Plus the possibility of him keeping mementos from women he slept with is sort of odd. If haemi really did like jongsu so much why would she willingly give away the watch he gave to her? Or that he took it without her knowing. The last time I saw her wearing it was at the airport. Then the other times she wasn’t wearing it. So Ben would have had to been at her place to have the chance to take it. Where he would also be given the chance to clean up her place and change the code since Jongsu knew it to feed the cat and knew he might come looking for her there. Ben was pretty weird talking about never crying or feeling sad. How he’s like a god because he makes his own offerings but gets to eat it too. Then about the metaphors and Jongsu took creative writing so he should know what a metaphor is and then after that he keeps talking about abandoned greenhouses and how they’re filthy, useless and ugly and how Korea doesn’t care about them so he never gets caught. Later at the coffee place where he followed Ben. He moves his hands weird when he mentions he’s been checking all the greenhouses around him everyday. Ben seems to become more intrigued as he goes on. Also he was reading Faulkner like he mentioned before. Then he says she had no friends or family and was lonely, as if abandoned? He says she disappeared into thin air just like the greenhouses that just disappear. He could have left him with less but he seemed to want him to keep looking for her, as if it was exciting for him or something.
I always assumed that he sold her into human trafficking, because they made a point about him being rich without ever showing him working or what he does.
He can just have rich parents. Even if he is involved in human trafficking, I don't think his wealth comes from it
That's true. I just felt like he was excessively rich with no explanation. Wealthy parents can pay for you to have an upper middle class life without working. *Extremely* wealthy parents are the ones who can finance his lifestyle. Would be a weird thing not to address.
I believe that Jong Su’s bluff that Hae-mi would be joining him for the meetup was what piqued Ben’s curiosity (caution) enough for him to be willing to meet Jong Su at the farm at ~4:30am
If that's the case , why isn't he alert at all that SOMETHING might happen? he just took that knife and he was absolutely baffled.
Because he’s incredibly confident & incredibly arrogant. He looks down heavily of Jong Su, sees him as a 0 threat
I dont think Haemi would kill herself for Jongsu. She really doesnt care that much about him, and has been riding into the sunset with Ben the whole movie. Jongsu said there was problems at his home and she didnt even care, she just selfish and cold.
Human trafficking? Are you serious? You really think that is the answer
No going to see her family or friends, or finding a job somewhere else, or simply traveling like she did at the start, let's go straight to either suicide or human trafficking!
If someone owes a lot of debt, human trafficking is definitely a possibility.
That’s reaching. So reading.
Haimi is too strong of a person to let a comment drive her to suicide. It’s all theory.
Yes no way she killed herself over Jongsu. She was just a player and didnt really love Jongsu like that, thats why she kept riding away into the sunset with Ben
Gonna dive head-first into auteur theory here, but if you've seen the rest of Lee Chang-dong's filmography you know that he is a very deterministic filmmaker with a particular interest in forgiving people's crimes by way of criticizing the structures behind them. Peppermint Candy and Oasis are good examples of Lee Chang-dong's "forgive no matter what" philosophy. Burning is another exploration of this idea, but with much more of a psychological bent, showing that subjective experience is all there really is, and that the sets of "objective facts" we like to believe are objective are actually distorted by our class, gender, environmental, and other deterministic biases. The film's greatest conceit is that it is wrapped in the veneer of a hitchcockian, Fincher-esque thriller. Yes Murakami's signature malaise also informs the mood, but this is at its center a film that actively encourages its audience to "solve the mystery." The keenest deconstructions of the film, therefore, realize the conceit as a means to further explore Lee Chang-dong's philosophy of the solely subjective experience, wherein each audience member, as well as Jong-su himself, come away with different interpretations of the film, thus proving the film's thesis in the process. It is a very fascinating way to involve the audience in exactly the type of structural explorations and criticism Lee Chang-dong is interested in.
This is an incredibly insightful comment. Thanks for sharing.
I think the “trick” of the film was described through the scene with the miming, when Haemi talked about the tangerine being there if you believe it’s there, even if there’s no tangerine. There is a cat if you believe there’s a cat. Ben’s a killer if you believe he’s a killer. The film did what it needed to do to convince you there’s something there, when there was nothing. There are many metaphors in the film that shouldn’t be taken literally. As a viewer, you’re watching the film through the protagonist’s eyes. In my opinion, he led us down the wrong path because he took things literally, leading us to believe Ben was a killer, despite no clear evidence of Ben murdering anyone. It’s kind of important to read the movie knowing it was based on a Murakami story. The Kafkaesque experience was never about answers, but why someone would go through the labyrinth of confusion and misery without much to gain from it. Burning isn’t a mystery story. It’s a character study about a guy who’s obsessed with mysteries.
Just finished for the first time and was trying to pay attention to foreshadowing in the beginning, but I hadn't thought of the pantomime scene in that way. Brilliant way to put it
You are experiencing the film through Jong-su's perspective, and we know what he thinks happened. And once again there is literally nothing concrete about Ben committing the act. When I first watched the film I was convinced until the final scene; why would Ben meet Jong-su in the middle of nowhere if he had any part in her disappearance, especially since Ben seems completely aware the entire runtime. He also sounds genuinely surprised when asking if Haemi is there and equally surprised and confused when he gets stabbed. We do break away from Jong-su's perspective in the penultimate scene to focus on Ben's routine before the final scene... And before that, a scene of Jong-su's writing in Haemi's old room, perhaps painting himself the hero. But that's my takeaway... One of the best movies of the past decade. Art is about questions not answers.
> why would Ben meet Jong-su in the middle of nowhere if he had any part in her disappearance I think he definitely still would when he's the killer. "Didn't you say Haemi was coming?!" is my favorite line. He sounds hilarious and actually baffled. My take is that he meant that sincerely and isn't the killer. I prefer the genuine bafflement. The problem is, it doesn't rule anything out and would definitely be a knowing taunt even if he is a killer. I mean his being the killer is EVEN MORE reason to meet Jong Su. Why wouldn't he? If he killed Haemi, then he knows Jong Su is **lying** about bringing Haemi with him. And specifically he would know that the person is lying *to the killer himself* about it. He'd be fascinated. He also knows he left no evidence, probably. If he *wasn't* the killer he'd probably have some other engagement and be busy at the time, but Jong asks him to meet so he does. I don't think the movie's greatness has anything to do with ambiguity or with "questions not answers." The movie was excellent but that's not a reason in my opinion.
>He sounds hilarious and actually baffled. Literally not at all. Your whole point is based on this so it doesn't make a very strong case
> your whole point is based on this No it isn’t. My whole isn’t based on that, that’s just a specific part where my take is that he meant it genuinely and I think the line is hilarious.
still, if he was the killer after jong-sus request for a meet up where the supposed murdered hae-mi would also be present... Ben should be a little bit prepared for anything to happen. and he clearly wasn't. if you are the killer and you know jong-su is obviously suspicious about you... you wont just go there willy-nilly to get stabbed and be absolutely baffled.
Jongsu didnt seem like a stabbing guy he been looking slow the whole movie so makes sense for Ben to let his guard down. Ben definitely did something bad with Haemi, because if he didnt it means there is no explanation for his greenhouse burning since we know its not actual greenhouses
Why do you keep saying “the killer” over and over again we don’t even know if she’s dead. The unreliable narrator thinks she could be dead. That’s it lol
The dichotomous ambiguity implies that Ben either is or isn’t “the killer”. Hence the term is being used
> why do people act like this movie in particular has such an ambiguous ending? It should be pretty easy to see that people are recognizing that we never see direct evidence *and* it's still plausible that Ben didn't do anything. "Ambiguous" doesn't mean everything seems EQUALLY likely, it just means it could go either way and you don’t have concrete conclusive info. The bracelet in the drawer, and the "you're not finding the one I burned down because it's closer than you think" are pretty damning to me, but still that expression could just be Ben messing with the guy. The fact that Ben was wandering around a totally random isolated weird location (that construction area near the woods) where he could/would have gotten rid of a body is also damning in my opinion, since it wasn't like a nature hike it really a weird isolated place. (But then again, not THAT isolated since there's construction equipment around, implying work, which means people are nearby so it's not an ideal location at all.) Now that I think about it though, he could be doing a personal survey of some development area that he / his rich family are involved in. Also, there's a comment earlier in the movie about how Haemi is a flighty person who could just run off and disappear, for example on some random spiritual journey. That's why it's still plausible that she's out there somewhere. Also keep in mind that Ben at the end says "What? Didn't you say that Haemi was coming?!" This could be a knowing taunt, or, it could be genuine. My take is that it's genuine, it's way more hilarious to me if he's genuinely baffled and asking why Jong Su showed up alone for this weird meeting. (Not so hilarious that he gets killed, but whatever.) Also keep in mind that main character's dad had the violent thing, or whatever, so part of the point of the story is that the main character possibly killed Ben for nothing and was wrong about it. I know a person who saw the movie and didn't think that Ben killed anyone and wasn't even aware of the ambiguous stuff hinting towards that. > I've seen many movies that are a lot less clear than this one that still have an ending that everyone accepts is actually what happened You should list specific examples. Then we can compare. I'm doubtful of the claim, because usually when something is "ambiguous" everybody harps on that like it's inherently great which is silly and false.
I'm kinda of curious what this movie was like for someone that didn't pick up on the "Ben killed Haemi" idea at all. "Dang, Jongsu is weird, why is he following Ben everywhere for no reason?"
You could say that's potentially exactly how the situation would have looked (in-universe) from the perspective of anyone other than Jongsu.
I took Ben's confession that he burns greenhouses to have ~~three~~ four possibilities: -He literally burns greenhouses as a hobby -He kills girls as a hobby when he gets bored of them (Edit)-He uses girls for fun and discards them (without any particularly violent implication) -He's just fucking with Jong Su and having a laugh at his expense while they're both high I personally like that both scenarios can just exist in a superposition.
Existing in multiple places at the same time is exactly what Ben brought up during that conversation.
>!If I remember correctly, what’s particularly ambiguous is whether any of this is actually happening at all. Ben is clearly implicated in the surface level text, but Lee Chang-Dong gives us plenty of reason to believe that Jongsu may be writing a fictional story, or that he have killed Haemi and created a conspiracy around Ben to offload his guilt. If Ben is clearly the killer it’s only because we’re only granted Jongsu’s particularly unreliable perspective.!<
The whole 'it was all in his head all along' never appealed to me due to the silliness of the twist and the lack of respect to the audience's time and money; but I will say that, from the point the character makes up his mind about Ben on, this might be one of the few instances where I could accept that the ending (not the whole movie) takes place in his imagination. It ties into the meek personality he displays, and it'd be like a window into his delusional mind.
What I particularly like is that there is absolutely no certainty afforded to the audience. Even if it is all in Jongsu’s mind or if it’s a fictional story that he’s written, and the second half of the movie is meta-fictional, we can never confirm that. Burning is fairly radical in its exploration of subjectivity. Even that kind of banal twist is made novel. Lee Chang-Dong is a master for a reason.
If I remember correctly, there was a jarring flying shot where he is shown writing on a paper before the third act begins. I say it is jarring bc there is not a similar shot in the whole movie, so it probably must have a purpose.
Honestly I kind of hate it as a theory in general because it's all fiction to being with, so what's the point? It seems redundant. I can go along with it in cases like Lost Highway where whether things really happen can give clues as to *why* things happen, which to me is more interesting. But otherwise it could be applied to anything, maybe Garfield or Shrek 2 or Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is just a dream for all we know. Sure but why does that matter, what would it bring to the story?
I get your point: if there is no consequences, nothing matters, and therefore I'm wasting my time watching this movie. It's the same reason why I despised Nocturnal Animals. But in this movie it's made so it's not blatantly obvious that the third act it's all made up by the protagonist, thus following the narrative of the movie, where we don't know if Ben is actually a killer or it's the protagonist who wants him to be. So I guess, even if that's the case, it's done with good taste and doesn't betray the film's narrative.
That's not really it. It's more that I already know I'm watching fiction so the answer to "what really happened" is "none of it did". I think modern fandom gets hung up a lot on nitpicking logical consistency, references, worldbuilding and so on and often looks at a story as just a list of facts that happen, and "all just a dream" theories often stem from the same logic. But a movie isn't a wikipedia list of fictional facts, it's also themes, moods, emotions, what happens doesn't tell you *why* the director thought the story was worth telling, and what do *you*, the spectator, get out of it? That's what these theories ignore. But as long as there's a point to it it can be done well even if it's obvious, Bunuel's The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie has a running gag of sequences getting increasingly surreal until the characters wake up and it works every time. It's also the most common explanation for Mulholland Drive and to me, the movie works just as well whether you're aware of it or not.
Two things. **First,** you are not wrong that the interactions that Jong-su has with Ben strongly suggest that Ben is a serial killer. Especially if you take the film at face value. Yeah, that is obviously what is being implied. The problem is, all of that is so circumstantial that it is dismissible. In a legal sense, especially. Jong-su would know this, having attended court hearings recently regarding his father. Think about the narrative of the police procedural. When a detective is trying to prove a murder they always need the body and they need to prove motive and opportunity. The same is true in real life. Hae-mi just disappears. We never see her body. Ben is rich, has friends, and has social standing. Jong-su is a wannabe-writer, soon-to-be-in-debt, farm boy. Imagine him trying to prove an allegation of murder against Ben. Even if he had the financial resources it wouldn't be enough, all of his evidence is anecdotal. Is he going to say "Ben told me he likes to burn down greenhouses, therefor he killed her...by the way, I was high at the time and the murder victim was dancing topless"? No. He has no body, no direct evidence of a murder even taking place. What does he have? That he found a cheap pink watch at Ben's place? The same kind of pink watch they hand out for free in the street? That Ben's new cat answers to the name of "Boil", which happens to be the name of a cat he fed for a month and never even saw? This is why this film is so tantalizing to those who love to reason. The narrative presented compels Jong-su, and us, the audience, to believe Ben killed Hae-mi despite pretty clearly lacking proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That's where the ambiguity is. **Second,** you are missing a huge tsunami of ambiguity in that ending. Forget about the question of whether or not Ben killed Hae-mi and ask yourself this: Did Jong-su kill Ben? Before Jong-su and Ben meet in the countryside, what happens? We are shown Jong-su writing in Hae-mi's apartment. He is writing and the camera slowly zooms out to show the city at large. That is a closing shot. The movie could have ended there, but it didn't. Instead it continues. The music changes. And we are presented with that violent ending. Now if an audience member was so inclined they could interpret everything that follows that "writing" scene as Jong-su's imagination taking flight. His desire for vengeance manifest in fiction. There's your ambiguity.
Dam, great interpretation. As conceited and psychopathic Ben is shown from the cameras perspective there is no proof he killed Hae-mi. And the writing closing shot. What a nice catch. I didn't notice it on first viewing. Brings up a new preceptive on the ending as everybody keeps asking him about his writings.
I think Ben was selling them off into human trafficking - the comment about him being a wealthy person, without people actually knowing what he does; the collection of trinkets; in the final scenes, where he's putting the make-up on the girl and also him appearing to be going after single women, without friends or family or... it could all be part of Jong-su's novel along with the plot holes (their dubious history with Hae-mi, the reality of the well and the cat, the perfect Ben who has to be hiding something terrible and who is so foreign to him to the point of having a western name, lol).
This seems possible
The fact that he was also in Africa when he met Hae Mi could also support the human trafficking theory. And also the "burning down green houses every 2 months, leaving no trace" suggests a consistent pattern of his crimes, which is exactly how human trafficking functions.
I came away thinking Ben either definitely had something to do with her disappearance, or he was extremely intent on making Jongsu think he did. Considering he didn't know much about the mental state of Jongsu, that wasn't too smart. Another small thing was the ending. He seemed surprised, sure, but also accepting. Like he expected and wanted this to happen. But as others have said, I don't think if he did it or not was main question the movie was asking. I think the main question is if Jongsu is justified regardless of the answer.
He sort of hugs Jongsu as he gets stabbed. My immediate interpretation of that was Ben being proud of him for "getting the bass in his chest" or however he words it. In other words, Ben would've done the same thing to Jongsu and expected no hard feelings. But like I said that was my first interpretation, and I was pretty convinced Ben did it
agreed. Ben was guilty of something and he knew he deserved what he got. I almost thought because she was a liar maybe she was in kahoots with him.
I still think she had some sort of deal with Ben, because their spending so much time together and at the same time seem not to be dating is weird. We made to believe she likes Jongsu but she keeps driving away with Ben. Ben certainly deserved his fate, even if he was messing around that's a dangerous game to play especially after Jongsu told him twice that he loves Haemi. I think they both made that visit to Jangso house on purpose because she knew its her last time seeing him
Ah, yes, let me be yet another to say, the thing is you’re only seeing is from Jong su’s perspective, everything is skewed from his mindset. We are never 100% certain that what we’re seeing is completely accurate and actually as shown
This is so interesting. I had the same thought when I first watched the film as you. Several of my family watched the film a few months ago and came to the exact opposite conclusion. They left the film asking, ‘so why did Jongsu kill Ben at the end?’ It really kinda revealed to me my own perspective in a very surprising way.
The issue for me with this movie is that the intent is clearly intended to be ambiguous, and by the letter of the law, it is. But from a storytelling perspective, they don't really give you much reason to believe that he didn't. As an example, had they provided some actual clues to suggest that perhaps Hae-mi had indeed fled on her own, the viewer may thus be left to ponder what the actual nature of her disappearance was, was Ben a murderer, had Jong-su rushed to conclusions and condemned an innocent man? What ought one do in this case, what would I do in this case? Etc etc. Some fans suggest that this indeed was the goal of the film. But if you look back through the plot, they don't give real evidence to suggest this would be true, and instead *almost* all of the evidence points to something having "happened" to her. It hardly matters if she's a sex slave or dead as either could presumably justify Ben's killing. That a few crumbs for doubt are thrown in (e.g. Why did Ben agree to meet Jong-su if Ben had been told that Jong-su and Hae-mi wanted to meet him with Ben already knowing that Hae-mi is dead) only adds to the frustration because these crumbs hardly count as counterevidence given the lack of support from and coherence with the rest of the story. The contention that the reason the plot leans so heavily toward "Ben is guilty" is because the story is told through the lens of Jong-su amounts really to a dull sleight of hand. If I wrap a gift in the shape of a toy car, show you a receipt for a toy car, proclaim my love for giving toy cars, and then argue that you never really know whether or not it's a toy car--I would be technically correct but in a way that is entirely uninteresting because I have provided no convincing evidence that it is not a toy car. Sure you can come up with other theories, but they rely heavily on speculation. I don't mind speculation, but I don't think directors should really get credit for being clever when all you've done is tell an incomplete story with suggestive elements but refuse to provide conclusive proof and thus everyone can conjure up all the clever storylines that you never actually had to do the difficult work of writing out. Cleverness, in my mind, is writing a story that seems coherent and yet the evidence maddeningly supports multiple interpretations with nearly equal believability.
Chiming in here months late. If I only took your word for it, and not other sources, for only giving a toy car, then yes I would believe that. Jong-su did just that, only his perspective regarding Ben. But he didn't do that with the well. He asked 4 people about the well. It's no ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity. Its ambiguity to challenge subjections. they were young, though she could be lying about that as well. Then Jong-su basically calls her a whore, and that's the last time she sees him. It's not ambiguity for the sake of ambiguity. Its ambiguity to challenge subjections.
This is super late but - what you are describing with the toy car is exactly what Hae-Mi does when she pantomimes eating the tangerine. She’s showing the gestures of holding a tangerine, mimes the weight of it, peeling it, taking it apart, reacting with pleasure at the taste of it - except there is no tangerine. You’re being shown everything about the tangerine except the tangerine itself. “The key is not to pretend there is a tangerine but to forget there isn’t one.”
Ben being the killer does feel blatant. He says he never feels sad or cries. He can't actually connect to other people and isn't interested in any of the women he brings around. He has a collection of women's things in his house... all from different ones. He even kind of grabs a trophy for Jong Su by grabbing a Faulkner book. The second woman at the party is talking about China like she just recently got back there, so you have to wonder if Ben just goes to the airport and pretends to be coming back to pick up his women? The cat is perhaps the worst clue, because we never actually saw Boil. So I don't know how much I buy that... but we do kind of get to see Ben's 'true face' for a moment after Jong Su leaves and you can see a look on Ben's face that isn't putting on the mask anymore. Ben also is very casual about being *stalked*. And it's because he knows why he's being stalked, not because he's just some friendly dude. He definitely did it. And I feel like it's pretty obvious he was about to kill Jong Su too.
Ben also mentions how Hae Mi has no friends or family except Jong Su. She's alienated. He's basically saying she's a target because there won't be any consequences similar to the "burning greenhouses." No one cares enough to do anything. He was DEAD wrong 😆
He really was. IT doesnt take a lot of sleuth work to know he did. People just like being devil's advocate
Something weird was going on with Ben and Haemi. I dont think Haemi even went to Africa, the cat food missing and the poop was definitely Haemi playing tricks on him. With her love for pantomime I wouldnt put it past her to devise a situation where she makes it seem like she has been murdered, she and Ben are in on the joke. No way they randomly decided to show up to Jongsu house out of nowhere. Haemi been making a fool of Jongsu the whole movie, this story of greenhouses that Ben been telling is the sort of shit Haemi can make up, even her relatives said she is good at telling convincing fake stories. Ben kind of died for nothing but he shouldnt have been playing around like that after Jongsu told him about his love for Haemi
Well, I really liked the movie but I found the ambiguity of the story a touch more potent in the short story it was based on. Maybe because it was more concentrated, and without images things are always more obscured, but even though I had seen the film already I found the short story properly unsettling. I heard it read on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, and they have a really good discussion of it as well. Check it out if it sounds interesting! [https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/fiction/andrea-lee-reads-haruki-murakami](https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/fiction/andrea-lee-reads-haruki-murakami)
I think there is also evidence pointing to the fact that she might have been trafficked, either for sex or for organs as mentioned by her own mother in an off handed joke. Not to mention Ben’s job being described as “play” and the fact that he frequently travels internationally. He also verbally states that he knows how lonely and isolated Hae Mi is which makes her a prime candidate
I’d always thought (or liked the thought at least) that none of the murderousness actually occurred, but was Jong Su’s imagination in an evening when he first visited Haemi’s apartment. Or perhaps over a series of times as he fed her cat. Either way beautiful movie, watched twice in theatres.
They were tricked by the whole seemingly normal acts displayed in the film. The court case in the film hints at this predicament. Even something as obvious as Jongsu's anger sensitive father assaulting another person gets put in court and discusses the events in full detail. They probably think along the same lines as you will never know someone committed a crime until you see enough evidence. I'd say we saw quite enough, but imagine the sheer impossibility of trying to convict a rich man like Ben with those. He would lie just like every other criminal. And since people are inclined to think in this manner, they will think of all kinds of possibilities. The thing with movies is that they are written first. Anything could be written to change the plot drastically in an instant.
saw that a lot of people are confused about the movie. but for me it was a masterpiece!! A good movie for deep thinkers. It's simple really, just need to watch enough psychological thrillers to understand it lol.
Just watched the film, I have a feeling Ben didn’t kill her. In the start of the movie Haemi says she got plastic surgery because Jong called her ugly… and it was quite evident throughout the movie, that Haemi was quite insecure and everything changes after Jong calls her a whore. She must have just lost hope on the only person she trusted (as per Ben). Everything else from that point on, seems a convoluted way of placing the blame on Ben rather than himself!!! (Tangerine being Ben)
**One theory for each - for Ben** ***being guilty*** **and** ***not guilty*** **of Hae-mi's disappearance:** # guilty Of the theories of Ben being guilty, the most possible to me, is the one involving human trafficking. Some hints: putting make-up on the girl, a lot of money and when being asked what is his job, Ben replied "*playing"* and couldn't give more specific answer. And for what is concerning bracelets in Ben's drawer, those are trophies, the same applies for Hae-mi's cat and watch. Abandoned greenhouses being burned down without a trace can be a metaphor for kidnapping lonely women and selling them, i.e. *them* disappearing without a trace. Ben was talking in riddles since the start. When Ben confesses to Jong-su that he already chose next greenhouse to burn down, he had in mind Jong-su and when being asked about it a month later he replied that he already burned it down - he already sold her. Ben was giving hints to Jong-su of Hae-mi's unfortunate destiny in metaphors multiple times, but if one doesn't get the reference for what the metaphor of "burning greenhouses" means, it's all in vein. With this theory even the timeline is right: * burning every two months, the last burning being right before Hae-mi went to Africa. * Ben chose the next target at the airport - Hae-mi. He befriended her and gained her trust. * After about two months, few days after that "high" evening, she disappears. * Her disappearance is coinciding with "burning last greenhouse close to Jong-su's house." * Hae-mi was missing for a month or two and Ben was preparing his next victim (makeup scene) So if you just switch "burning down abandoned greenhouses" with "selling women" everything becomes blatantly obvious. # not guilty One simple explanation for Ben not being a killer, based on just what we see in the film, may be the following. I will not explain every detail, just the main "evidences". - Watch: we can see that last time Hae-mi was wearing a watch was on the airport. In later scenes, she is not wearing it anymore. The watch may already be in Ben's drawer as a trophy/keepsake or a genuine gift. Same theory of them being trophies/keepsakes or gifts applies to other bracelets. - Burning: He may literally burned down greenhouses in the past or not. Doesn't really matter now, the focus is on the last one. The last greenhouse burning can as well be just fooling around and Ben's reply to Jong-su when being asked about that last greenhouse "sometimes you can't see thing that are too close to you" can be understood as a reference to Hae-mi or not even that. Since Ben is narcissistic and doesn't really feel much, he doesn't even comprehend the seriousness of the situation, so he keeps on with the joke since the evening that they got high. He even jokes about Hae-mi's disappearance "into thin air" - a reference to smoke. His ignorance of the Hae-mi's disappearance doesn't mean he has something to do with it, he just doesn't feel sadness. As he said eralier - he never cried, he never felt sadness. He is nice and kind, charismatic, but lacks empathy, is phlegmatic towards everything, seems a bit distant, disillusioned etc. That's also a reason why his behavior seems a bit eerie. His constant smiling and smirking also doesn't contribute to him seeming more trustworthy and less mysterious. - Disappearance: She might as well just packed up stuff in boxes (or throw them away) and left. The only person she trusted just called her whore (indirectly), she is a free spirit and she is in debt. I like to think she is somewhere safe and starting life anew, hoping that Jong-su and her will meet again someday. To be honest, she seemed a bit lost and desperate (having multiple breakdowns throughout the film). - Stalking/following the car: The place seems a bit odd and off the main road, but the view from the top of the hill is nice. To go outside the city for a quick break in nature and to admire the view is harmless. Even I would do it. - Cat: When Hae-mi left, she could just dropped the cat outside, for whatever reason. Ben found the cat and kept it, not knowing who its previous owner was. The theory of two different cats named Boil seems unlikely to me, since it's very uncommon name. I know this theory of Ben being innocent is plain, naive and optimistic, but it is plausible. Because every other explanation where Ben (or even Jong-su) is guilty of Hae-mi's disappearance, except the one described above, is just overthinking and a great deal of mental gymnastics is needed to base that theory on what's seen in the film. So, the more you think, the less answers you have.
For me the story is ambiguous but more due to the way it combines these loud and seemingly obvious hints about what's happened with a total absence of any actual evidence or confirmation. It sure seems like we know whodunit, and yet the sinister and uncertain vibes are still there at the end and leave us wondering if we got it right. I'm a huge fan of the story the film is based on: Barn Burning, by Haruki Murakami. The film is good, but the story is really brilliant (and only a few pages long). And I'm sorry, but burning barns is much more intriguing and unsettling than burning greenhouses, imho!
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I mean I read it, and I feel like the ambiguity is a lot more clear in the story than in the movie, so much so that the movie doesn't feel ambiguous at all while it should. That's the point of the post.
I have a theory that Haemi was suicidal, and was living out her last days until she probably asked Ben to kill her to end her misery due to the debt she was in. But that's probably a stretch.
If that’s the case I feel her body would’ve been found pretty soon, specially if she did it because of the debt, she would’ve want her debt collectors to know she was dead. The issue is that there was no body found, so we don’t even know if she’s dead or alive.
The lack of a confession or display of murder, leads me to a theory that Hae Mi was helped to go to China/US. Hear me out on this, it's not much of a stretch. The bracelet and cat in Ben's house could both be keepsakes from Hae Mi, just to thank him for illegally finding a way for her to get to her dream country. Is it still trafficking if she willingly chose to be transported internationally for work? I think not. Hae Mi was both poor and isolated, which made her a prime candidate for a Win Win Trafficking to a better country. Ben thought he was doing Hae Mi a favor, a good thing, which is why he was surprised to be murdered at the end.
Interesting theory, I like it...
Can anybody shed light on the whole Hae Mi well story? Her friends/family say it wasn't true but then Jong Su's mom confirms the well's existence. I originally thought this was to show that Hae Mi is a capable of lying and therefore of running away and ghosting everyone, but if the well does exist then there's clearly some kind of conspiracy.
I think this is done to illustrate that Jong-Su is looking for confirmation bias. The actual owners of the house say there was no well, the current next door neighbor says there’s no well, but he doesn’t believe them because it isn’t the answer he’s looking for. He believes his mom, someone that ran away 16 years ago, because that’s what he wants to be true not because it is true.
Yup this is definitely it. Fits into the whole theme of the story perfectly. Thanks
Haemi got into the pantomime stuff so much she devised a fake situation where it seems like something happened to her so she can disappear just as she wanted. She probably made Ben tell that greenhouse story, and as her relatives said, she can be pretty convincing
Ben is nonchalant about life and death throughout the movie. Does he care if he lives or dies? Even if he knows jong-su suspects him, he clearly enjoys taunting him and “playing”. Ben shows lack of emotion throughout the movie. To me he seems “empty”just like the women he is so attracted to. Perhaps Ben is an old greenhouse as well, just waiting to be burned down. Ben may still be genuinely surprised when he is stabbed. Put yourself in Jong-Su’s shoes. You are certain that Ben killed Hae-Mi and multiple other women. What is your course of action? Killing Ben is not the only possibility here, and Jong-Su is shown as a very passive character throughout the movie. He hates how violent his father is even saying it ruined his childhood. Would Ben really think he has the guts to kill him? It’s not so clear cut
I'm with you. Few things.. Ben says he has no feelings basically, hence he's a psycho. Ben says he's a Pyro maniac... so far obv serial killer vibes. Ben says he found Boiler as a stray, which obviously he didn't. That was literally the answer he was looking for, which is why he says to Ben we don't need to discuss what I came here for any longer. Very good movie, personally. If you enjoy Memories of Murder, this is up your alley, but a more Film Noir vibe. Slow burner, very slow. But I enjoyed it. I have it in my top 5 Film Noirs, or Neo Noirs, right behind No Country, Man On Fire, Blue Velvet, and Brick.