Spring, summer, autumn, winter.....and spring
The Korean director Kim Ki-Duk's 2004 film 'Spring, summer, autumn, winter...and spring' is perhaps the film I would have liked to have made myself one day - had I had the talent and been wise enough to have had the vision. Prayer, meditation, and appreciation of nature are the sacraments by which two monks live as master and apprentice in a tiny temple on the most beautiful lake. There is very little dialogue during the film - just AMAZING photography of the most beautiful place on earth, symbolism without cliche, and brilliant understated acting as the seasons change and the younger monk grows up and experiences life through both virtue and vice. The film is about wisdom, inner peace, suffering, forgiveness and acceptance. It is gentle and mesmeric yet thought-provoking and I think everyone on the planet would benefit from seeing it....
posted by raven @ 12:44 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I thought this film was amazing too. It was all the things you said Raven, but also for me was very nightmarish and frightening. There is an undertone of violence throughout - the violence of nature and humanity, which always seems somehow to rise to the surface. Maybe I was expecting the film to be more serene than it actually was. Cruelty, death, lust - all the disruptive elements of existence are there as much as any zen mastery over this chaos.
I saw this film when it was first out and thought it was beautiful, thank you for your post it has inspired me to watch it again.
I know what you mean IS but I think if the film was purely sweetness and light it would be insulting and much less wise....nature is cruel as you say....and man is deeply flawed and one of the most destructive and self-destructive creatures of all. I think part of becoming wise and peaceful is seeing this in oneself and accepting it without letting it ever surface...
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