Burning

Lee Chang-dong made this after an eight year gap. It comes from Barn Burning, a Haruki Murakami story in the collection The Elephant Vanishes, and also carries elements of William Faulkner’s 1939 story of the same name. The production was held up by a rights dispute between Murakami and NHK. Shooting began in September 2017 and finished in Paju in January 2018. Jeon Jong-seo, who plays Hae-mi, was a newcomer found through auditions that started in the summer of 2016; Steven Yeun plays Ben. It was sold to more than 100 countries and territories at the Cannes market. The film competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It did not win, but it took the FIPRESCI critics’ prize and scored the highest rating recorded up to then on Screen International’s Cannes jury grid. South Korea submitted it in the foreign language category at the 91st Academy Awards; it was not nominated, yet it became the first Korean film to reach the nine title shortlist. It won best director at the Asian Film Awards, and the Los Angeles and Toronto critics each gave it their foreign language prize. A good fit if you like weighing whether a narrator can be trusted with what he sees. Not for anyone expecting answers at the close: the film does not say who was right.