Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...And Spring: Reviews

ALTERNATE SYNOPSIS:
A tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breathtaking landscape, tended to by a solitary Monk. Into this serene setting comes a young child, who will become the old monk's protege...and so begins a lifelong journey of hope, despair, passion and redemption in a film hailed as "a triumph of sheer cinematic craft," (Rene Rodriquez, Miami Herald).

From the brash actions of youth, through the dawn of adolescence and the fullness of adulthood, one man's life lessons are learned as seasons pass, his emotional inner life changing as the landscape around him. Award-winning Korea writer/director/editor Kim Ki-duk has crafted a lushly exotic yet universal story about human spirit and its evolution, from Innocence to Love, Evil to Enlightenment, and ultimately to Rebirth that Elizabeth Wietzman of the New York Daily News calls "a beautifully composed canvas, the sort of film one falls into, resurfacing at the end with great reluctance."

When I found out a few weeks back that Kim Ki-duk's new movie, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winterá and Spring, was going to be playing at a local theater in Milwaukee, I was pretty excited. Then I'd started to read a bit more about it and my expectations started dropping slightly. Until my viewing of this movie last night, I'd only seen one other Kim Ki-duk movie, The Isle, which I absolutely loved but which was really quite twisted. But, from what I was reading, SSFWaS started sounding like it would turn out to be a boring melodrama about the stages of a man's life. Boy, am I glad I was wrong. It was a terrific film that deserves all the accolades it has thus far received.

The plot is very straight forward, because there isn't a lot to it. It just follows the stages of a young monk's life as he is mentored by an old monk on their floating monastery (inhabited by only the two of them and their ever changing pets). It's the way that the story is told that makes it so interesting. Not only does the title of the film represent the stages of life of the young monk, but it also represents the actual seasons that those stages are shown in. During the Spring segment, the young monk is just a little boy and the film takes place during Spring. During Summer, the young monk is in his teens. And so on. This was a very effective and enjoyable method of conveying the story.

The film employed a more Buddhist theme than simply centering around 2 monks. The film could be seen as coming full circle by the end (when you see the film and understand what I mean), which is a very eastern/Buddhist philosophy (even if it is simple and even a bit clich*d). It also doesn't hurt that Kim Ki-duk found the most picturesque valley in South Korea to film this in. The cinematography was absolutely spectacular.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winterá and Spring was an amazing film by an extremely talented director (who, by the way, also played the young monk in the Winter segment). I wasn't quite sure I'd like this film when I'd read a few things about it, but it certainly didn't let me down in any way whatsoever. Do yourselves a favor and check it out.