I see a lot of movies that you can watch with one eye closed, or with frequent trips to the bathroom or candy counter, and you still don't have any trouble following what's going on. If I know where a movie is going right from the start, I can't watch it. I get bored too easy because the filmmakers didn't really make any effort to challenge me. Now, to be fair, most movies aren't smart enough to challenge the audience. They are content to give the people what they think we want, and no further than that. They don't have any respect for the intelligence of the viewer.
Not so with "The Living and the Dying." Here's a movie that sets up a bunch of stuff, and don't even bother to answer all the questions it proposes. Why? Because, it doesn't need to. Roger Ebert in his review of Five Easy Pieces, wrote that all that matters in a movie is what happens while you're watching it. Back story and developments that have nothing to do with the main story which are left dangling at the movie's close are not important. Just what is happening to the characters while you're watching the film.
TLATD is like that. Several elements are introduced which are never fleshed out, mainly because they don't have anything to do with the ultimate resolution of the plot. Characters are fleshed out only to the extent that we know how they are reacting to what is happening all around them. There are no flashbacks to explain things. We, as an audience, are left to figure things out for ourselves, or not to. It's our choice. Of course, none of this is to suggest that the movie is unsatisfying. Far from it. The film is so lean in spots, so tightly wrapped and fast-paced, that it almost takes your breath away. Then, just like in real life, everything grinds to a halt, so that two characters can spend what seems an eternity cleaning blood off a floor while in the next room a character wheezes unbearably in an agonizing death throe.
I've read other comments here that talk about the performances and the writer/director, so I won't bother to repeat what has already been written. They all deserve credit for producing a movie that is honest, unflinching, and worth watching. That's high praise for these days.