Justin Chang's best movies of 2018: 'Burning' and 'First Reformed' lead a year of mystery

"To me, the world is a mystery."

That sad, simple line - as fitting an epitaph as any for 2018 - arrives late into the exquisitely unnerving South Korean drama "Burning," the best new movie I saw this year. The speaker is a troubled young man and aspiring writer named Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in), who over the course of the movie will grapple hard with that mystery, using his powers of observation to illuminate, as best as he can, the pain of living in a world that has long passed him by.

In time a rival surfaces, a lady vanishes and, after much searching, an author finds his story. It has been suggested that the movie's writer-director, Lee Chang-dong, who was a successful novelist before he turned to filmmaking, sees something of himself in Jong-su - a grimly funny thought, especially if you know the movie's outcome. It's one of many puzzles in a story that ultimately respects its mysteries