There’s a chance that Lee Chang-dong‘s Burning will wind up with a major prize by the end of tonight’s Cannes Film Festival award ceremony. I was told by two or three colleagues that I really need to see it, but I couldn’t make it happen and do the thing that I feel I need to do in my own way. I should apologize for missing it, but every year I always manage to miss a significant Cannes film so why not just own that? I’ll get to Burning sometime in the fall.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy called Burning “a beautifully crafted film loaded with glancing insights and observations into an understated triangular relationship, one rife with subtle perceptions about class privilege, reverberating family legacies, creative confidence, self-invention, sexual jealousy, justice and revenge.”

Oh Jung-mi and Lee Chang-dong’s screenplay is based on “Barn Burning“, a 1992 New Yorker short story by Haruki Murakami (with acknowledgments to William Faulkner).

The Wikipage calls it a “mystery drama”…interesting and blandf at the same time. Pic costars Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun and Jun Jong-seo. It runs 148 minutes.