It’s only a matter of coincidence that I recently made my way through Little Fires Everywhere which also started in media res with characters reacting to a home burning down leaving the audience to wonder what led to it. The similarities between these stories mostly ends there, but Burning does have that in common with the limited series.

Burning (or Ot), out of Kyrgyzstan, is somewhat of a black box for those unfamiliar with the film culture of the area or who know director Radik Eshimov from his work in television production (where he focuses on comedy). Though there are few laughs to be found in this haunting tale of subjective truth that ends in a pile of ash and a conversation lit by flashing lights.

As I mentioned, the movie begins after the fire as townspeople gather around the local convenience store (or “depanneur” for the Montreal festival audience) to swap stories of the days leading up to the events. The movie is then broken into three parts, each being from the second-hand perspective of someone who was in the house: the husband, the wife, the mother-in-law. It becomes a spooky tale that cleverly uses shifting perspectives and repeated moments and lines to change the views of the happenings without changing the ultimate truth. Eagle-eye watchers who prefer to examine scenes for what isn’t being shown directly will have fun here, but beyond that, audiences are slowly forced to face truth, subjectivity, and perspective as the movie rails on.

At the risk of saying too much, what’s special is how this movie discusses subjective truth and the perspectives of women, especially how they are squashed in larger conversations. “Maybe it’s all just a lie,” and “what if it’s the truth?” mark the final scene and were left seared into my field of vision as the finale pressed on. Burning’s Rashomon style tale so well examines the idea in a way that will ring relevant for most anyone on any side of any border.

But it does so without ever forgetting that it’s a horror movie. In ways reminiscent of Rear Window or Attachment in how it lets the horrors exist while characters might be unreliable or misinterpreting what’s in front of them. There are hard to watch gross-out scenes, djinn focused and other religious frights, and the scares one might associate with Rosemary’s Baby. Everyone has a turn at playing the monster, even those just recounting the tales as told to them.

Burning is the festival movie that utterly surprised me, showing up unsuspectingly as a haunt about a witchy mother-in-law and her immature charges as told through the eyes of gossips. As its story pressed on and the horror escalated, my expectations were delightfully subverted and I was left well-fed by such a rich horror story.

Burning played at the Fantasia Film Festival