Director Lee Chang-dong and actor Steven Yeun on the profound mysteries of 'Burning'

CANNES, France - Early on in "Burning," the gripping new psychological thriller from South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong, a shy, troubled young man named Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in) returns to a small farmhouse in the town of Paju, where he's lived since childhood. President Trump can be seen and heard blaring from a TV in the background, a throwaway detail that becomes more disquieting when it's revealed that Jongsu lives close to the border with North Korea.

Adapted and transplanted from a 1992 short story by Haruki Murakami, "Burning," a runaway critical favorite at the recent Cannes Film Festival, is less about any geopolitical turmoil than it is about class privilege, youthful ennui and frustrated longing.

But for Lee, the 63-year-old writer-director of such acclaimed character studies as "Secret Sunshine" (2007) and "Poetry" (2010), there is something