This is the closest Korean director Kim Ki-Duk (tortured sex dramas The Isle and Bad Guy) will ever get to being Zen and grown-up. His Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring, about the cycle of life and lessons learned, is one of his most accessible efforts yet, even if it deals with dramatic themes such as guilt, enlightenment, faith, lust, penitence, redemption and sin.
This beautiful, understated film is split into five parts, following the five seasons of a man’s life. Beginning with “Spring,” we are introduced to an unnamed old monk (veteran Korean actor Yeong-Su Oh) and his young disciple (Kim Jong-Ho). Set on a one-house islet on an idyllic lake and its surrounding forest, “Spring” traces the child’s misdemeanors, as the monk observes the child tying rocks to a frog, a fish and a snake; and in reverse, uses the same method against the child.
Come “Summer,” the child has grown into a handsome teenage boy (Jae-Kyeong Seo), who finds himself lusting over a sickly but attractive young woman (Ha Yeo-Jin) under the care of the monk. When the old monk falls asleep every night, the two escape into the forest to have wild, uninhibited sex, but are later discovered by the monk. The woman is sent away. Angered and embittered, the boy decides to leave the islet in search of an alternative life.
In “Fall,” which takes place more than a decade later, the now 30-year-old man (Kim Young-Min) returns after a run-in with the police, and begs for penitence, peace and judgment from his master.
Through the various seasons of life, the man must learn the philosophy of his faith and learn to live that philosophy. Ultimately, in “Winter,” the protagonist (played by director Kim) returns to the monastery once again and suffers more consequences of his behavior. Following that, another “Spring” begins as the man is spiritually healed and charts a new life.
Don’t worry if director Kim gets all philosophical on you. Spring, Summer... is a delicately realized and symbolic film that will move skeptics as well as fans of Kim’s more graphic and explicit works. Each segment of the film is gorgeously shot to reveal painterly visions of the respective seasons, and this imagery is worth the ticket price alone. You will burn, grow, wither and yearn over this one.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring is screening on Dec 17 at Sinema, Old School. Www.sinema.sg.