Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring

Released April 2, 2004

Directed and Written by Ki-duk Kim

Starring: Yeong-su Oh, Ki-duk Kim, Young-min Kim, Jae-kyeong Seo and Jong-ho Kim

Rated R for some strong sexuality

103 minutes runtime

This South Korean paean to Buddhist life traces a monk’s life from his beginnings as child-novitiate in a remote two person monastery in the mountains of Korea to his own assumption as master after a harsh submersion in the joys and terror of worldly life.

To say that the movie is saturated with useful facts about Buddhism would be an understatement.  The movie itself IS Buddhism.  The doors between the rooms of the tiny monastery define rooms without walls.  The doors are the passages, but it is left to the occupants to define the walls with what they see or don’t see.  The monastery is a tiny island in a remote lake in the mountains and the lake itself is guarded by a doorway without walls.  Nonetheless, the pervading spirit of the scene seems to mandate passage through the doorway and not around it.  The respect and observance of the rules of the monastery are the only walls required.

The lack of walls and the subsequent universal passage through the doors, and not around them, turns the old American movie comedy shtick on its ear.  In this movie it makes perfect sense to go through the door even thought here are no walls around it. 

As long as the novitiate and the monk don’t pass through the doors on the lake, they are in the monastery.  They could travel over the world and not leave the monastery, still abiding by its rules.  But once a person passes through the doors and leaves the confines of the area, there will be no coming back unchanged.  What the world affects, it infects.  There will be dues to pay.

The analogy of human as the four seasons of the year is nothing new.  But in this movie the four seasons are actually lived through the events in the life of the novitiate as he grows, becomes worldly, sees the error of his ways and returns to his duties at the monastery.

On the surface, “Spring, Summer” might seem similar to the story of the prodigal son, leaving his Garden of Eden in favor of worldly delights, but eventually returning to the forgiveness of the father.  But the movie made much more powerful by the complete lack of judgment demonstrated by the actions of the master.  The story is simply one of natural consequences, and karma that returns to be a part of one’s life.  When the young apprentice ties stones to animals in a childish act of domination, the master, in turn, ties stones to the boy.  So it goes with life; we tie on our own stones and imprison ourselves within our own walls.

Later, the stones of the world are tied to the young man as he succumbs to the earthly delights of a young female visitor to the monastery.  Staying for several months to overcome a chronic illness, the girl departs after her recovery, and after introducing the adolescent novitiate to yin and yang he had hitherto only imagined.  Pleading to be allowed to marry her, the master replies that lust is the predecessor of possession which is the predecessor of murder.  The young man ignores this advice and ejects himself from the Garden of Eden.  The Monk’s seemingly draconian take on affairs of the heart is born out as the novitiate comes back with police on his trail.

At this point the audience is sure the monk will hide the boy and protect the callow youth from the destructive forces of prison, but the monk does no such thing.  He knows that it is as impossible to stop life as it is to stop water from flowing into the lake from the rains.  Rather, a wise man can affect the way the water flows into the lake, making it less harmful.  To this end he prepares the boy for prison through an exercise that, in the end, has the police involved as much as the boy.  There is no need to take the young man out of the prison, but only to take the prison out of the young man.

After what we assume is a stay in prison of about 5-10 years, the boy returns as a grown man to find the monk gone in a carefully crafted act of passing.  The scenes of the monk preparing and executing the centuries-old ritual passage into the next world are truly remarkable.  The viewer is drawn into the scene as if it is happening in the theatre.  Only much later when the young novitiate returns home is the complete impact of the monk’s passing unfolded.  The novitiate is now the master.  He takes over the monastery and is soon joined by a young woman visiting him to give up her son as the next novitiate.  …..And Spring.

Filmed entirely in one location, with only a few sets and nearly no words, this movie is a masterwork of dramatic presentation.  As it turns out, the emphasis on the silent truth, rather than the verbally distorted, lends itself remarkably well to the cinematic medium.  It is the spaces in between the words that tell the story.  The words themselves are only markers defining one lesson from the next.  The spare dialogue provides ample room for facial expressions and body language.  A picture is worth a thousand words.  There is no musical score save that of the birds and insects.  The clean and clear cinematography shot in the Juwangsan National Park in South Korea is a moving experience in itself.

The cyclic nature of the story is a warm reminder of the enduring qualities of human life that overcome temporal frailties.  A fine foray into spiritually, “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring” is a good lesson in “letting it be” for the uninitiated, and also a valid reminder for western Buddhists about the carnal, the spiritual, and the weakness of human judgment in the presence of worldly temptation.