Burning: The Greenhouse Effect

Lee Chang-dong's creepy movie Burning hints at a lot of things. Is Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) hyper-observant or increasingly paranoid? Is Ben (Steven Yeun) a despicable self-absorbed rich kid or a charismatic serial killer? Is Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-su) a longtime pathological liar and even if she is, does she have a cat or not? Furthermore, are abandoned greenhouses truly being set on fire by a pyromaniac or is this a metaphor for something much more sinister? As the movie progresses, you tend to side with the worst possible answer for every uncomfortable question not because Lee is a nihilist but because the class war is real and the indifference of the haves and the rage of the have nots must naturally manifest in various pathologies which lead to some pretty twisted behavior. Lee isn't telling us mankind is inherently evil; he's showing us how society warps us. At least that's one interpretation of Burning which feels so rich with detail that you could do a master's thesis interpreting its allusions and imagery.

And while I don't think it's ever stated outright, Yeun's turn as the Americanized Ben adds a global dimension to the story: He ultimately comes to represent the gluttonous traveler, the carefree, uncaring tourist who sees the world as his playground and people as disposable playthings. His impersonal apartment looks like a hotel room; his car, like a status symbol more than a mode of transportation. Jong-su refers to him as "The Great Gatsby" at one point, and, a writer himself who favors Faulkner, he's aware that this isn't a compliment by a long shot. There's nothing glamorous of wealth without purpose. By the time this semi-platonic ménage à trois gather together to smoke a joint outside of the struggling farm where Jong-u has landed now that his dad (Cho Seung-ho) is in jail, you know that something terrible is going to happen to at least one of them but I for one had no idea which one or ones or how or why. And even though now I do, I'd watch it all again in a heartbeat.

Lee's last film before this was eight years ago: Poetry. I couldn't be happier he's back.

Peppermint Candy: Off to a Sweet Start

There are certain works of art -- Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop; Thornton Wilder's Our Town; much of Shakespeare -- that somehow capture the totality of life so completely that they feel practically omniscient. Art-house darling (and mine too) Lee Chang-dong's Peppermint Candy is one such work. Told in reverse chronology with unerring compassion and merciless honesty, this brilliantly searing movie surveys the life of Yang-ho (Sol Kyung-gu) -- a suicidal businessman who initially comes across as the universe's whipping boy -- with a scientist's methodicalness. But as Lee peels back all the layers of corruption and cynicism, self-loathing and loss that have accumulated for Yang-ho, you end up simultaneously confronted by the man's complicity and his misfortune. A person can make grave mistakes and still be worthy of our sympathy. Isn't there an unsure, hopeful, longing being existing in each and every one of us? Isn't the loss of innocence the most universal tale?

If that sounds like sentimental hogwash, take note: Lee's film is a rattling scream of anguish. I didn't cry once although I was pretty upset for most of it. Unrelenting in its intensity, Peppermint Candy keeps throwing cold water in your face the moment you start to get the warm fuzzies. Check out the seriocomic scene in the car where Yang-ho is literally performing on his cell phone for each caller or the surreally discordant marital scene that features his nude wife Hongja (Kim Yeo-jin) running around on all fours like a golem or the seemingly straightforward hospital scene in which he sweet talks his first love (Moon So-ri) while her husband stands in the background. Every time you think you've figured out what's going on, Lee gives a wrenching twist to the action that reminds you that you can NEVER really know what's going on in anyone's life, head, heart, or world.

Peppermint Candy is Lee's sophomore effort as a writer-director and like Oasis, the heartbreaking film which followed it, this movie has a magical quality that's hard to explain. Between each sequence, for instance, dreamlike footage reveals a train's journey but backwards: Nearby cars drive in reverse, people retrace their steps, a dog seems to dance to on unheard command. It's nothing you haven't seen before and yet it feels as though it is. The ability to make the familiar new may be what makes a piece of art, art anyway. Don't you think?

Poetry: Not Enough Rhyme or Reason in the Old Lady's Lousy Life

Oh, Mija (Yun Jeong-hie), you pitiable, misdirected old lady. Did you really think that enrolling in a creative writing class at the community center would reconnect you to the beautiful things in life? Your troubles are far too deep for that. Your grandson (Lee Da-wit), after all, is one of six admitted rapists who've driven a fellow high school student to jump off a bridge to her untimely death. You claim to be close to your own daughter (his mother) but from the looks of it, you'd prefer whoring yourself out to a disabled old man as a way to raise funds to bribe the suicide's mother than to ask your dear child for a measly dime. Oh Mija, did you actually think that learning to write a sonnet would cheer you up? Did you really believe that getting to know the wisecracking cop while hanging out at poetry night at the local cafe would lead to something better? What were you thinking? Oh, wait. That's right. You can't remember what you were thinking because you've got Alzheimer's. So I'll ask the film's director Lee Chang-dong: What were you thinking? Sure, Poetry has quietly profound moments but did they require two and a half hours to serve? And is the film's bleached out palette a commentary on the washed out lives of your characters or an unneeded snub to the art of cinematography? I love Oasis and I like Secret Sunshine and The Green Fish quite a bit but this Poetry just wore me out.

The Green Fish: You Need to Go Down to Get Deep

The loss of innocence is so upsetting sometimes. Even if you factor in that innocence and adulthood are pretty much incompatible, watching a late-bloomer fall from grace can make for a painful viewing experience. And coming-of-age only gets crueler the older you get. In Lee Chang-dong's masterful first film The Green Fish, the naif about to lose it all is earnest 26-year-old Makdong (Han Suk-kyu). He's a poor, eager-to-please guy who, recently discharged from the army, ends up working for ruthless mobster Bae Tae-kon (Mun Seong-kun) after one unlucky circumstance. Bae's girlfriend Mi-ae (Shim Hye-jin), for her part, is about as far from innocence as you can get. Pimped out by her boyfriend when she's not being harassed by customers who ridicule her nightclub act, she knows she's sinking more and more deeply into the mire but she can't find a way out. She's drawn to Makdong not because he's cute but because he's the least corrupt thing she's seen in God knows how long. He'll never be the life preserver he and she wishes he could be; the few times he tries, he proves a terrible protector since he's adhering to a school boy code in a roomful of truants. But their love is inevitable. Just as their future is doomed.

Secret Sunshine: Give Me That Old Time Religion

Talk about a beautiful downer. This movie from writer-director Lee Chang-dong (Oasis) charts the precipitous descent from melancholia to grief in one unfortunate's lonely life. The subject is Shin-ae (the captivating Jeon Do-yeon), a mourning widow who has transplanted her piano teaching business and her not-quite-normal son (Seon Jung-yeop) from Seoul to Milyang in an effort to regain autonomy and to forge a new identity. There, instead of finding comfort or stability, she loses her savings, her son, and her sanity in short order. The respite of an evangelical Christian church seems to reground her temporarily then sends her into an even more dangerous freefall. Throughout the emotional upheaval, one person stays -- sometimes annoyingly -- near. He's the local mechanic (Song Kang-ho), a momma's boy who at 39 still hasn't found a wife and sees in Shin-ae something worthy of pulling out all the stops. Theirs is a troubled romance. He's not her type; she's not all there. But just as Secret Sunshine is an X-ray of sorrow, it's also a study of the curative powers of devotion, on what it means to love, be loved, and accept love both in times of need and from places we'd normally prefer to disregard.

Oasis: When Inside the Heart Is Outside the Box

Before he was a filmmaker, Lee Chang-dong was a novelist. It shows. He's a master storyteller unafraid of the implausible or the extreme. Oasis, his third film as writer-director, starts off like some bit of French New-Wave-meets-Cassavettes filmmaking. It's got the shaky handheld cinematography, the oddball camera angles, and the screwball antihero (Sol Kyung-gu) who you can't help but like. You might call what follows a quirky romance but to classify Oasis as a love story would be to pigeonhole a movie that's really oustide the norm. Does the protagonist fall in love with the severely handicapped girl (a fearless Moon So-ri) who he's befriended out of guilt for past crimes? Yes and no. He certainly doesn't say so. And since he can't think straight and she can't speak clearly, you're in danger of assigning meaning where there's really just a mystery. Except for a few daydreamed sequences, these two characters rarely mirror the classic mating dance because they always read as two separate beings even when he's got her on his back. In fact, Oasis is more than anything a reminder to us of how outsider status is embedded in our deepest relationships even if we're not handicapped physically or mentally in an easily diagnosable way. We're always individuals. We're always struggling to make ourselves heard. And at our best, we're always listening.