Ready to Rent Ready to Rent (October 22, 2004)

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring

Columbia/Tri-Star Home video1 hr 40 mins

Director: Ki-duk Kim

Director Ki-duk Kim's "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring" is a macho Buddhist poem of lust and redemption that could have tread upon the waters of narcissism if it weren't for its mix of earthy brutality and poetic setting. The film is a song of the seasons in the spiritual life of a Buddhist monk from childhood to death, and rebirth. Its setting, a floating temple in the middle of a lush lake (the film was shot in a nature preserve over the course of a year), lends an ethereal quality to the piece. It also takes on (maybe just to a western audience) an overtly sexist tone, with temptation always in the symbolic female form.

The film begins with a neat marker, which continues to indicate the film's passage of the seasons, of two ancient creaking doors opening to reveal the lake/shrine where the story will unfold. An old monk (Yeong-su Oh) patiently teaches his young pupil the lessons of life. The old monk's primary concern is the child's naive inability to view the interconnectedness of nature, which cumulates in the child's cruel act of gleefully tying rocks to several animals (don't worry - I researched this for posterity and the director is on record claiming that no animals were killed). The teacher, however, had been spying on the boy and tells him that he must go back and set the animals free; if one of the animals has died, the boy will carry the stone forever in his heart, which resonates for the rest of the film.

Spring and Summer bring about adolescence and young adulthood, where lust blossoms for the student. A mother, in hopes of a cure for her daughter, brings the girl to the temple to be treated by the old monk. The attraction, however, between the young monk and the girl blossoms into a romance, with the two sneaking around the old monk's back. It is the young monk, however, that fools himself about deceiving his master, who prophetically warns that lust can only lead to murder. That prophecy comes to fruition in Summer where the young monk returns, years after leaving with the girl, a bitter fugitive. Lust had led to his demise and, in a remarkable scene of atonement, the old monk makes his pupil carve his penance onto the length of the temple deck.

Winter brings the return of the now middle-aged monk (played by director Kim). The old monk has long since passed and it is time for the younger monk to take his place. He devotes himself, without ego, to his enlightenment during the sleep of winter, only to be given the gift of applicable wisdom when a woman and an infant cross the frozen lake and are taken in by him.

Knowing little about Buddhism, I found "Spring, Summer" to be surprisingly compelling. Its imagery in particular, from the haunting old monk's "burial" mask to the Eden-like passage of the young lovers in the woods, have a mythic quality without being distancing. As I have mentioned, the women in the film serve only symbolic purposes (usually as innocent temptresses), but I never felt it was out of malice. I felt that "Spring, Summer" was not only sincere in conveying its spiritual elements, but genuinely compelling in its execution as well. -Joe Ramirez

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