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Reviewing Kim Ki-duk's new movie that shows different style "calm and stillness"
The life runs through seasons
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If you were asked about Kim Ki-duk, the movie director, how would you answer this question? Even those who have not seen his movies have heard his name. He has shocked his audience by realistic expressions and unexpected endings with totally new materials. His 9th film, "Spring Summer Autumn Winter... and Spring," was completed and there was a showing for the public. This film was quite surprising in that it was a change from his previous movies and breaks the prejudice with which most movie viewers have held against his movies.
His previous works
He made his debut with a movie called, "Crocodile" making people shocked in 1996. Later, he expressed despair, love with sadness, and devilishness of human beings by making "Wild Animals" "Birdcage Inn" "Isle, The" "Real Fiction" "address unknown" "Bad Guy" and "The Coast Guard." Compared with other movies in which the main characters are usually in good circumstances, his characters were the people who were thrown away from society and remained with hope, despair and fury at the society at the same time. Moreover, his movies have been invited to international film festivals and received many awards. This has made Kim Ki-duk more famous to even people who has not seen his movies.
Synopsis of "Spring Summer Autumn Winter... and Spring"
An old monk and a little monk are living together in a temple floating on a lake in a mountain. Like the title, this movie consists of five chapters and these were divided by the growth of the little monk with the changing seasons.
In spring, the little monk plays tying stones to a fish, a frog and a snake. This playing was just for pleasure to him, but this brings the death of the fish and the snake. At this time he awoke to the meaning of killing nature.
After the door of summer is thrown open, a weak girl enters this temple for recuperation. The monk who has grown up falls in love with the girl. The master monk realizes this and sends her back home. However, her absence makes him leave the temple.
The autumn means youth in people's lifetime. The man comes back to the temple after killing his wife who had committed adultery. He does not hide his anger and the master monk sees him through and let him engrave Prajna-paramitasutra (Bannyasimgyeong in Korean) on the floor for easing his rage. After he completes engraving the works, he serves his term in prison and the master monk cremates himself.
In winter, he returns to the empty temple through the lake which has frozen all over. He tries to get peace of mind carrying asceticism out. Again spring returns, he takes care of a little monk who resembles himself. Just a simple story, dialogs and symbolical images spread before audience without any ornamentation.
His new style of calm and stillness
Watching several scenes of "Spring Summer Autumn Winter... and Spring" are similar as Kim's past movies. He still esteems human's desire and feelings. In autumn, the man did not hide his feelings at all. The way of expressing his feelings merely changed to being smoother and softer as rather than killing he tried to kill himself. The old monk said "It is natural." It can be Kim's point of view when he think of human being.
This film is asking, "What is the life of a human being?" Asking this essential question, the movie draws the violence of one's life, love, excessive fondness, and anger meditatively.
During the past times, the director focused describing pain through main characters of the lowest class. They represented their suffering by showing restrained desire and anger explosively. However, this movie is different. In the scene the master monk orders the young man of autumn to engrave Prajna-paramitasutra on the floor, the master said "Engrave all this characters with your knife. Erase the anger in your mind as you engrave the characters one by one." While the director has expressed anger and indignation, he tells us to forget those in this movie. It is so opposite to the previous works of Kim.
One of the characteristics were the rapidity in Kim's previous works. Now the rhythm of his movie is more relaxed. Additionally, his persona (It is a term used in filmdom. Persona means the best actor or actress who can express the specific detail the director wants to represent and they often work together.) Jo Jae-hyun, an actor who was in all of Kim's movies except just 3, did not appear and the director comes to the screen himself without his cap.
Search for the meaning of life
This movie describes one monk's life, but it is not a Buddhist movie. Maybe people can see just a person's life and this makes it possible for the audience to look back their lives. Additionally, spectators can find the director's philosophy about human's life such as desire for love, murderous intent and pursuit equilibrium just as it was.
Kim Young-min, the actor who acted the man of autumn, mentioned it is a beautiful movie having Korean colors and that it was quietly moving when he saw the film as one spectator. He also added, "Autumn is a process of realizing. The man expressed rage for losing what he sought in reality, then he pacified his anger."
This film makes the spectators wonder "Why did he use animals?" or "What do the doors without the wall meant?" and so on. The animals mean just existence and disappearance and the emblematic doors are the morality that people have to reserve. Therefore, the monk in summer approached the girl without passing the doors. However, the director remarked, "The film has to be completed by the audience." How about finding the meaning of each scenes and words by yourself?
If one sees the preview of "Spring Summer Autumn Winter... and Spring" maybe he or she will see this sentence at the end of the preview. "It is beautiful, because we live as human beings."
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By Jo Hyun-mi
Reporter of Culture Section |
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