Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring

A

Directed by Kim Ki Duk

"Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring," the immensely talented Kim Ki Duk's best known and arguably most accomplished film to date, is a rich and rewarding tale of great symbolic and spiritual depth.

An old monk and his disciple live on a small floating temple in the middle of an isolated lake. This spiritually rigorous environment is suddenly broken when the monk's disciple falls in love with a sick girl from the outside who had been brought to the temple by her mother to convalesce. The young monk's passion soon pushes him to leave his master, a decision he will later regret deeply.

"Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring," although a simple story, is fantastically rich in both character development and symbolism. I've always felt that Kim was one of the most "literary" filmmakers working today (if that makes any sense at all...) insofar as he seems to approach much of his work in a deliberate and calculated way that gives an immense place to detail, character, and symbolism. "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring" is likely his most accomplished work as Kim infuses his film with layer upon layer of symbolic meaning, giving his work an incredible amount of depth in a rather short running time. Despite it's heavy Buddhist underpinnings, "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring" is suffused with a number of universal religious truths, most specifically the emptiness of the material world and the fleeting nature of carnal desires.
Kim's immense talent as a director has often been overshadowed by his choice to focus on shocking or otherwise dicey subject matter so it's nice that he finally released a movie whose subject matter doesn't overshadow Kim's brilliance. Don't get me wrong, some of Kim's more shocking or controversial efforts were also great films but with "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring" you can sit back and enjoy the full breadth of Kim's talent without the cringe inducing scenes or the occasional pangs of disgust that come with some of his other films.