SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER AND SPRING

Korea, 2003, 103 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Kim Ki -Duk.

For anyone following the growth of recent Korean cinema, the name of Kim Ki -Duk will mean tough stuff, worlds of sadism (The Isle) or sleazy underworlds of pimps, prostitutes and prisons (Bad Guy). This is a different kind of film altogether, although there are some plot details that remind us the urban jungle of Seoul and other cities is within reach of the peaceful countryside.

This is a Buddhist film, a film that can communicate some of the key Buddhist beliefs to non-Buddhists through images and story: meditation and prayer, harmony with nature, reincarnation, passion and detachment, repentance and retribution, redemption and peace.

The setting is an isolated lake surrounded by mountains. At the edge of the lake are painted doors which open for us at the beginning of each season. They reveal a floating hermitage where a wise Old Monk lives, instructing disciples or receiving visitors who want prayer and healing.

With each season and its beautiful environmental changes, the second character in the hermitage grows, develops and fails. In Spring, he is a young boy who has to learn not to be cruel to and destructive of nature. In Summer, a teenager, he learns sexual arousal and love but has to learn what lust is and detachment. In Autumn, an adult of thirty, he has to repent of his violent mistakes. In Winter, in middle age, he has to return to his origins to learn wisdom and be redeemed.

If the audience surrenders to the lake, the mountains and the hermitage, there is a great deal of wise entertainment and glimpses of a spirituality that has sustained Asian cultures for centuries.

1. The impact of the film as Korean, Buddhist?

2. The location, the floating monastery, the lake, the surrounding countryside, the mountains? The close-ups of the scenery, the long shots, especially the monastery from the mountain? The four seasons and the changing foliage, rain, ice? The beauty of the location? The monastery itself, interiors and exteriors? The gate, opening and shutting?

3. The title, the indication of the seasons, Spring as new birth, new life with its overtones of reincarnation? Winter as an ending - leading once again into Spring?

4. The Buddhist contemplation, the statues of the Buddha, the monk, commitment, the detail of daily life, prayer, wisdom, reading, documents? The monastery as a shrine, visitors for healing? Instruction?

5. The Spring story: the beauty, the little child, waking up, listening wisely to the old monk, the old monk and his personality, praying, guiding the boy? Rowing, collecting herbs, sorting the good herbs from the poisonous? Watching the little boy and his delight in tying the stone on the fish, the frog, the snake? The old monk tying the stone on the boy during the night, giving him the lesson, telling him to take the stones from the frog and the fish and the snake and if they die, to carry them in his heart? The dead fish, the live frog, the dead snake? The wisdom learnt by the boy?

6. The Summer story: the monk at seventeen, the summer weather, sunshine and rain? The work of the young monk around the monastery, rowing? The girl and her mother? The prayer for healing? The boy and his touching the girl, her reaction? His approach to her, her pushing him in the water? Taking her away to the rocks, the sexual encounter, during the night? The two in love? Their being together, playing, the grasshopper? The old monk and his watching? His comment about nature taking its course? His talking about lust, lust leading to possession and murder? The girl healed and sent away? The grief of the young monk, his taking the Buddhist statue and leaving?

7. The Autumn story: the monk and the newspaper, the story of the murder? The young man returning to the monastery, with the statue? His confession, the old monk listening, talking? The attempted suicide and the old monk whipping him? The old monk ordering him to etch the Buddhist teaching onto the floor, his grinding the paint, painting? The detectives, their idling away the time, the comment of the old monk in throwing the stone at the can? The guns? The man going to sleep, the detectives taking him away, not handcuffing him? His going to his fate, purged of his angers after his shouting in the rocks and the pool, obeying the command of getting out all the etchings with his knife? The weather, the autumn leaves?

8. The Winter story: ice and snow? The old monk having sacrificed his life at the end of the autumn story, setting himself alight in the boat, returning as the snake? The mature man returning, walking across the ice, seeing the abandoned monastery, setting it up again, returning the statue of the Buddha? The woman wearing the veil, the baby? Her prayer, her despair, her falling into the hole in the ice and dying? The baby left behind, its crawling out on the ice and being rescued by the monk? His tying the stone to his back, climbing the mountain with the statue of the Buddha, setting it on the height and looking over the monastery? His keeping the baby? His performing the rituals as the old monk did?

9. And Spring: the change in the weather, the monk and his ritual, the young boy, his sketching him, life starting over again?

10. Buddhist cycles of life, passion and detachment, contemplation and prayer, healing the soul and the body, retribution for sin, passion and lust, possession and cruelty? The film dramatising these themes?

11. The portrait of the monk at different stages of his life? Growth, failure, redemption? The old monk and his achievement, yet his suicide, despair at failing the young man? The mother and the young girl, the girl and her illness, the reaction to the monk's flirtation, succumbing, love? The detectives, the modern world, the mobile phone, the guns and handcuffs? Yet their being affected by the old monk? The woman veiled, her baby, her death?

12. A film portraying Korean and Buddhist culture for Korea itself - and for the wider world?