봄 여름 가을 겨울... 그리고 봄

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
Title (English)	Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
Title (Korean)	봄, 여른, 가을, 겨을... 그리고 봄
Directed by	김기덕 (Kim Ki-duk)
Written by	김기덕 (Kim Ki-duk)
Running time	1 hour 45 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean

Plot

The film follows the story of a young monk with his Master living in an isolated floating monastery and shows the different stages of his life as told through five seasons.

Spring

In Spring, he learns about respecting the living force of nature. And he also learns an important lesson that will echo throughout the film.

The films opens with Spring at a floating temple monastery, where a Buddhist monk and his child disciple lives in an unknown location. Living in the middle of the lake, the two make use of a small rowboat as transportation. With this boat, they go to and from the bank of the lake, where they collect herbs.

On a day out in the hills, the child disciple commits animal torture- tying a small stone with a string to fish, frog and snake - out of boredom. The child laughs with the sight of the animals struggling to move with the stone tied to them. Little did he know that his master was silently observing him. On that night, the Master monk ties a large, heavy rock to his disciple's back while he is in his slumber.

The next day, upon finding out about this punishment, the child monk asks his master to untie the rock from his back. In response, his Master steadily tells him that he cannot untie the rock from his back until he frees the animals he tied to a string. He also warns him that he shall "carry the stone in his heart forever" if any of the animals die. The child monks searches for the animals, struggling with the rock still tied to him, and discovers that the only the frog remained alive after such torture. Upon seeing this, the child monk sobs heavily realizing his mistake.

Summer

In Summer, he discovers love, lust and their pitfalls.

The child monk is now an adolescent young monk, and the episode opens with him greeting a mother and her ill daughter in the forest, guiding them to the temple.

Fall

In Fall, he is forced to take responsibility for his actions- murdering his wife.

Winter

In Winter, arguably the harshest season; the apprentice becomes the master and he has to overcome both the mental and physical obstacles to take over the position that his master left.

... and Spring

And in the following Spring, he is now the master of the monastery, with a young apprentice who turns out to be as mischievous as him.

Cast

• Oh Yeongsu as the Old Monk/Master
• Kim Ki-duk as the Adult Monk
• Kim Youngmin as the Young Adult Monk
• Seo Jaekyung as the Teenage Monk
• Jong-ho Kim as the Boy Monk
• Ha Yeojin as the Girl
• Kim Jeong-yeong as the Girl's Mother

Awards and Nominations

Year	Award	Category	Nominee	Result
2003	Locarno International Film Festival	C.I.C.A.E. Award	Kim Ki-duk	Won
		Don Quixote Award	Kim Ki-duk	Won
		Netpac Award	Kim Ki-duk	Won
		Youth Jury Award	Kim Ki-duk	Won
		Golden Leopard	Kim Ki-duk	Nominated
	Blue Dragon Awards	Best Film		Won
	San Sebastián International Film Festival	Audience Award	Kim Ki-duk	Won
	European Film Awards	Screen International Award	Kim Ki-duk	Nominated
	Faro Island Film Festival	Golden Train Award	Kim Ki-duk (Jury Prize)	Won
			Kim Ki-duk (Best Film)	Nominated
2004	Bangkok International Film Festival	Golden Kinnaree Award	Kim Ki-duk/Best Film	Nominated
	Camerimage	Golden Frog	Bae Dong-hyeon	Won
	Grand Bell Awards, South Korea	Grand Bell Award	Best Film	Won
	Las Palmas Film Festival	Golden Lady Harimaguada	Kim Ki-duk	Won
	Pacific Meridian International Film Festival of Asia Pacific Countries	Grand Prix	Kim Ki-duk	Won
	Russian Guild of Film Critics	Golden Aries/Best Foreign Film	Kim Ki-duk	Won
	Satellite Awards	Golden Satellite Award	Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language	Nominated
2005	Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards	Silver Condor/Best Foreign Film, Not in the Spanish Language (Mejor Película Extranjera en Idioma no Español)	Kim Ki-duk	Won
	Association of Polish Filmmakers Critics Awards	Honorable Mention/Best Foreign film	Kim Ki-duk	Won
	Chlotrudis Awards	Best Movie	Kim Ki-duk	Won
		Best Cinematography	Baek Dong-hyun	Won
	Italian Online Movie Awards (IOMA)	Best Cinematography (Miglior fotografia)	Baek Dong-hyun	Nominated
2006	Bodil Awards	Best Non-American Film (Bedste ikke-amerikanske film)	Kim Ki-duk	Nominated
	Danish Film Awards (Robert)	Best Non-American Film (Årets ikke-amerikanske film)	Kim Ki-duk	Nominated
	Sofia International Film Festival	Burgas Municipality Award 'Silver Sea-Gull'	Kim Ki-duk	Won

Academic Analysis

Buddhism

Director Kim Ki-duk emphasized that he deliberately did not research about Buddhism nor consult any Buddhist experts prior to making the film because he did not intend for it to be received as a religious text. However, given the nature of the storyline, there is a tendency to discuss the film from a religious point of view. It is also significant to note that a significant amount of research focuses on the Buddhist aspects of the film.

The Role of Women in the Film

In comparison to Kim’s previous works, this film is far less graphic and subtle, focusing on a tale of solitary Buddhist life with little to none dialogue. More importantly, does not display controversial scenes regarding sexual violence against women. Although it can be argued that Kim’s Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring is not a Buddhist film is its core, the use of male Buddhist monks and their monastic life as a means to deliver a “universal” message open the floor for criticism in terms of how women are perceived in the religion. However, Jason Bartashius argues that the Buddhist culture is inherently patriarchal and consequently dictate the manner in which women are portrayed in the movie: as temptresses and symbols of suffering. In this sense, this work is no different from Kim’s previous films in its treatment of women.

Existing literature on Buddhist texts and cultures provide evidence that there are quite vague and simultaneously conflicting ways that such religious texts portray women. Analysis on Buddhist literature, specifically on Therigatha- an anthology of poems on the early Buddhist women, by Rita Gross points out that from its inception, Buddhists support two slightly contradicting beliefs: that there are issues and concerns with women and that women also have the potential to achieve enlightenment. In the same vein, Sponberg claims that early religious texts were quite ambiguous on gender offering both positive and negative evaluations of women. In his analysis, he scrutinizes four specific categories of attitudes towards women that highlight the textual basis that different Buddhist institutions utilize to either include or ostracize women. One category is called ascetic misogyny, which, given its name, is considered to have a more negative view towards women. This category maintains a belief that women are not capable of achieving enlightenment and that they are “a threat to male celibacy”.

A. The Temptress

The Young Woman in Summer

The highlight of the Summer episode is undoubtedly the teenage monk’s sexual awakening, where his thirst for sexual pleasure is aroused by an ailing young woman who arrives at the temple monastery to seek healing. Subsequently, he inevitably gives into his desires and forms an attachment with the woman which is an obstacle to his path to enlightenment. Given that the movie is generally presented from the young monk’s perspective, it is unavoidable that the viewers will perceive the young woman as a temptress and a distraction from his spiritual goal rather than just a mere love interest.

Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths teaches that life is suffering, and that suffering comes from thirst and desire. This teaching was evident in the film, with the adult monk ultimately murdering his wife after leaving the monastery to pursue her. According to the Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Walpola Rahula, the Buddha defines thirst and enumerates its different types:

"It is this “thirst” … which produces re-existence and re-becoming … and which is bound up with passionate greed … namely, (1) thirst for sense-pleasures … (2) thirst for existence and becoming … and (3) thirst for non-existence."

With thirst as a hindrance to the path of enlightenment, the eradication of desire is important for monks and therefore remaining celibate is of utmost concern for them. Monastic codes in the Buddhist canon describe specific ways to remove desire, particularly by perceiving the body in itself as vile in order for one to detach himself from such physical and sexual desires. However, Sharon Suh argues that in there is an inclination to think of “female bodies as dirty, loathsome, abhorrent, and by extension, material embodiments of the immoral” based on Buddhist canonical texts. Because of this, women are perceived to be representations of such desire and thirst that monks should eliminate [in order to achieve enlightenment].

Existing feminist literature on the film argue that Buddhist literature not only views women lower than men, but more importantly, that women are characterized as evil. Sharon Suh cites the tale of Sirima from the Dhammapada in the Theravada Pali Canon as an example. It tells the story of Sirima, a young former courtesan whose beauty arouses a young monk’s desire. He becomes so taken with her beauty that he seeks her out multiple times, finding her beautiful even when she fell quite ill. Knowing the situation, the Buddha decides to make a public display of her body after she dies (from her illness) as a way to provide a lesson in eliminating desire. Upon her death, the King was instructed by the Buddha to have Sirima’s body displayed in the cemetery. After three days, her body begins to bloat and decay with which the King announces that all should come to the cemetery to observe her body. The young monk rushes over to discover that her body is being sold for one thousand in cash, but no one is willing to buy her for any price. As the young monk meditates on her death, he realizes that the same woman who was the object of desire is now just a rotting corpse.

“Now there is no one who will take her even for free. Her beauty has perished and decayed.” Saying, “Monks, look at this diseased body,” he spoke the following verse [Dhammapada 147]: “Look at this decorated image, an elevated mass of wounds. This diseased thing is highly fancied, (although) it’s neither permanent or stable.”

The Young Woman in Summer

Although the young woman in the film did not intend to lure the young monk into breaking his vow of celibacy in the beginning through her actions, scenes succeeding their first sexual encounter evidently portray the young woman as a temptress. To cite some examples, there is a scene where she gestures to the young monk to come over to her side of the bed by lifting up her blanket to which he obliges, deliberately going over his master to get to her bed. And on her unknowingly last night in the temple, she leaves her room with a subtle but suggestive look towards the young monk which leads to their sexual encounter in the boat.

It is also important to note that it is only the woman and not sexuality in itself was portrayed as evil in the film. Suh (2015, 85) goes even further to argue that the film shows that “sexuality can be a profound teacher advancing the monk toward his spiritual awakening so long as he abandons the woman afterwards.” In the film, it can be seen that the Master does not explicitly condemn sexuality but actually suggests that it was cure to the young woman’s illness. However, similar to Sirima, whose deceased body was left to rot in public, the young woman is essentially abandoned by the young monk as well.

B. The Voiceless

In the film, it can be observed that women have no agency and ultimately serve their purpose to help push the patriarchal narrative forward. This applies to the two significant female characters in story, namely the young woman in Summer and the weeping mother in Winter. Bartashius (2017, 7) reiterates that both women’s associations with both the monk, in Summer and Winter respectively, emphasize the belief that the spiritual path to enlightenment is inherently a masculine struggle.

In the Summer episode, an ailing young woman arrives with her mother to seek healing. Right from the viewer’s first glimpse of this woman, her petite and frail body establishes weakness and her position as a damsel in distress. Given her purpose for coming to secluded floating monastery, she is essentially an outsider under the care of the Master and his disciple. Consequently, the woman’s actions are always in relation to the monk. This arrangement in itself is a subtle nod to ascetic misogyny in the manner that is displays how women are viewed lower than men. Furthermore, it is significant to mention that although the young woman attempted to show some resistance to the young monk’s advances, she ultimately allows him to drag her to the rocks, enabling him to fulfill his sexual desires. Ensuing her sexual relations with the young monk, she does not leave the monastery by her will, but rather she was ordered to leave by the Master, who explicitly mentions that the cure for her illness was sex. Subsequently, she presumably dies in the hands of the young monk himself, who was warned by his Master that “Lust awakens the desire to possess. And that awakens the intent to murder.”

The Crying Mother in Winter

In the Winter episode, a mother whose face is covered by a shawl arrives with an infant at the monastery following a montage of now adult monk’s physical and mental training. The succeeding scene reveals to the audience that she came with the intent of offering her child to the monk. But of course, it is evident that this act of offering is no easy task for her as she weeps before the Buddha for a while before leaving the monastery in the night. This unfortunately leads to her death, accidentally falling into a water hole created by the monk. She, too, ultimately vanishes from the story after providing the temple with a child that would soon grow to be monk himself.

It is also important to note that viewers are not presented with the mother’s reason leaving the child that will allow for an understanding or an opportunity to empathize with her. Furthermore, her veiled face is an implication that her identity is not important, at least relative to the monk. It is apparent that her importance in the story lies in her ability to provide the monastery with a child that will keep the monastery alive. And as women’s sexuality is connected with suffering in Buddhist texts, motherhood is associated with samsara. Bartashius claims that mother’s relevance with samsara, or the cycle of rebirth, is due to her offering of a child to the temple monastery. Granted, men are physically incapable of bearing a child, and children are vital for continuity. As can be seen in Summer and Winter, both women are mainly associated with sex and reproduction before their untimely deaths. Consequently, both women disappear from the story after serving their purposes, leaving the spectator with an implication that in a highly masculine world, there is no place for women.

One of the film’s characteristics is its minimal dialogue, which gives greater weight to every single sentence uttered. Particularly, most of the minimal dialogue is only spoken by the male characters; the Master and his disciple. In addition, it is also important to note that even the two policemen who arrive at the temple monastery in the Autumn episode are given more lines than the young woman (Summer) and mother (Winter), despite the women having arguably more significant roles. Apart from reactionary shrieks, the young woman in Summer only utters “Yes” in response to the Master’s question of whether or not she was already feeling well. On the other hand, it is only the crying mother’s sobs that can be heard from her in Winter.

Samsara

The use of the different seasons, together with the purposeful ending with another Spring season, emphasizes the theme of repetition and circularity, can be juxtaposed with the Buddhist concept of samsara, the concept of rebirth and circularity of life that is driven by Karma. Samsara asserts that beings go through an endless cycle rebirth and identifies six realms of rebirth and existence: gods, demi-gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hells, with a Buddha standing outside of each realm. Accordingly, existing literature by Francisca Cho (2014, 118-9) delves into this particular Buddhist concept in the film by analyzing the animals present in each season.

The Master's self-immolation in Autumn

Cho argues that the choice of animals the accompany the human for every season beings indicate more than just circularity, but reversion. Following this logic, the self-immolation, along with the old monk’s reincarnated form, seems to underscore the impossibility of escaping the endless cycle of rebirth, or Nirvana. This is suggested by the snake- lower life form- as the reincarnation of the old monk, which surfaces as he commits self-immolation as the Fall season ends. However, Cho also offers an alternate interpretation which indicates that the Master’s rebirth as a lower life form removes the distance between nirvana and samsara.

However, Bartashius (2017) emphasizes the need to examine the old monk’s reincarnation to a lower life form from a practical perspective— that is, the interpretation that master failed to liberate himself.Following this reading, Bartashius suggests that the reason for this failure is due to the accumulated negative karma from his past life. This is supported by the Michael Sofair’s idea that the Master and his disciple have seemingly similar identities that they are ‘almost interchangeable’. (2004, 41) Consequently, this implies that the old monk must have committed the same, if not similar, crimes as his disciple despite the absence of a narrative depicting his younger days. This is further corroborated by the final Spring season which reveals the child monk replicating the misdeeds of the young monk in the beginning of the film.

Imagery and the Narrative World

Autumn

Nature

In an interview with Kim Ki-duk, he describes the first stages of the film as a search to answer this fundamental question: “What is man?”. And as can be seen from the film, the answer to this question can be observed through the narrative world the director has established. Kim says “Man is nature, and nature is signified by the four seasons, which echo the life of a human being from birth to death.” This analogy was the expressed on the screen through distinct episodes in the young monk’s life, from childhood to manhood.

A Considerably Imposing Tree in Summer

Focusing on the visual imagery of the film, it is evident that that nature is as important as the actors in the film from a visual perspective. A significant portion of the movie presents the audience with a multitude of wide shots of greenery, and elements such as the considerably imposing tree that is located beside the main gate of the temple and the water surrounding the temple. Through this, the audience is compelled to feel the weight of nature’s significance given how much space it occupies in a frame.

Nature: The Lake

Existing literature by Green and Mun examines this structural element from a Buddhist perspective and construes the lake as a representation of the young monk’s mind, with the front gate serving as the “borderline of the lake”, hence the frontier of the young monk’s mind. They point out that the young monk’s misdeeds in Spring, Summer and Fall all occurred outside the realm of his control— outside of the lake. For instance, the child committing animal torture, the adolescent young monk engaging in his first sexual encounter and subsequently, the murder of his wife all took place beyond the borders of the lake. Because of this, they claim that all of these events occurred given his lack of control and due to his yearning for being “oriented outwardly as opposed to inwardly”. Granted, this desire goes against the nature of enlightenment and holding an inward orientation. Consequently, the guilt that the young monk has accumulated from committing such misdeeds shifts into his mind (in this case, the lake).

Although a considerably meaningful interpretation, it fails to explain how the young monk’s succeeding sexual encounters transpire within the lake (or the realm of his mind). Following the logic their argument has provided, it can be implied that engaging in sexual relations is a manifestation of the inability to control one’s minds and desires. However, one instance happens one night at the monastery itself while their final encounter occurs on the boat floating in the lake itself. If these events occurred within the realm of the young monk’s mind, certainly the decision to involve himself in the succeeding sexual relations was made with a conscious mind. Given this, this interpretation leaves room for doubt and critique.

Apart from the Buddhist perspective, it is also important to decipher the meaning of the lake from a practical perspective. In the film, the lake is shown as a continuously flowing element, and one that brings the characters from one point to the other. There are a number of relevant sequence of shots that emphasize this quality, with one shot from the inside the temple looking outward showing the change of scenery, indicating the passage of time. Accordingly, the lake can be seen as a symbol of time and change given that on a basic level, the water from the lake flows out of the lake to larger bodies of water. Parallel to this, the young monk, in Autumn, makes the decision to leave the monastic life in order to pursue the young woman. This in turn marks a shift in the character’s life, which can be considered to be similar to water flowing out of the late. Additionally, it is interesting to note that in the Winter episode, the imagery of the frozen lake seems to imply that time has come to a momentary standstill following the Master’s death in Autumn.

Nature: Mountains

The Adult Monk in Winter

The mountains also play an essential role in completing the narrative world of the film. Similar to the lake, it visually occupies a significant amount of space frame-wise, serving as a boundary, a visually appealing yet meaningful background and as an agent of upward movement. First, the mountains that surround the temple operate as a border of the narrative world. An overhead shot taken from the top of the mountain defines the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’. Secondly, it functions as aesthetically beautiful background while simultaneously serves as a reminder that “Man is nature”.

Finally, it plays a crucial role in completing the adult monk’s transformation, thereby shifting the spectator’s perception of him. In Winter, the audience witnesses the monk’s laborous climb to the top of the mountain with a stone tied to him as he carries a statue of a Maitreya Buddha. Wide shots of this scene that display the vast mountains reveal the gravity and the difficulty of the uphill hike. Beyond this, the act of climbing the mountain is significant in the sense that it suggests an elevation of the mind to a transcendent realm. The image of the monk meditating upon reaching the peak of the mountain with the Maitreya Buddha represents enlightenment, which in turn establishes the achievement of the Buddhist aspiration.

Structural Elements

It is said the integral structures such as the floating temple and the gate were purposely built for the film. This extends to the Buddhist images on these structures, including the boat. Given this, there is good reason to consider that the narrative world of the film plays an important role in deciphering the characters and the story itself. Examining these structural elements will be useful in the attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the seemingly simple yet sophisticated story of life and repetition. The following sections will discuss interpretations of specific structural elements:

Structural Elements: Floating Temple

In an undisclosed location lies the floating temple monastery that serves as a home and place of worship for the protagonists in the film. The fact that is it is a floating structure renders this unlike a general Korean Buddhist temple and also suggests that this conscious directorial decision carries a certain significance in deciphering the film.

Examining the film’s narrative world in the Buddhist lens, Green and Mun suggest that this structural element, together with the mountains and the lake, represent the “internal lives of human beings in terms of the world, the mind, and the nation”. While the lake symbolizes the mind (as discussed in a previous section), the floating temple is said to signify the potential of achieving enlightenment. This is demonstrated by existence of an image of a Buddha in the center of the temple.

Given the fact that the director explicitly encouraged spectators to make their own interpretations of the film, it is also worth examining the existence of the floating temple from a non-Buddhist perspective. The wide shots of this structural element show the temple in slightly different positions in the lake, indicating that it is slightly moving according to natural elements such as water and wind. In this sense, the floating temple can also symbolize human beings that constantly evolve. Human beings learn to adapt and develop according to the flow of time and nature.

Structural Elements: Wall-less Doors

The Young Monk's Trangression in Summer

The concept of wall-less doors is arguably one of the things that left the greatest impression in the film. For most of the story, the characters acknowledge the two doors for each “room” as the entry and exit points, consciously following the unwritten rule of passing through the door to arrive at the center room and subsequently leave the monastery. There is only one instance, however, where this rule was violated; in the Summer episode, the young monk deliberately ignores the door as he realizes that opening the door would wake his Master, thereby passing through the space beside it in order to move to the young woman’s “room”. With this, doors in the film can be seen as a representation of the rules or norms that society has. Furthermore, it can be said that the young monk’s conscious ignorance of such rule is evident of his transgression and deviation from the norm.

The Adult Monk in Winter

Francisca Cho (2014, 116-7) offers a more profound take on this, arguing that the wall-less doors symbolize mental discipline and perception. The existence of these doors is constant reminder for the characters to be mindful, and therefore ignoring them shows unmindfulness and difficulty in maintaining one’s inner peace. Following this logic, the young monk’s deliberate ignorance of the door in the Summer episode not only shows his transgression, but how his mental discipline falters in the presence of women. This unmindfulness consequentially represents his “failure to maintain the clarity of one’s inner space”. However, the shift in the monk’s perception is evident in the Winter episode as he sits behind the door of his room, repeatedly opening and closing the door in order to catch a glimpse of the crying mother. In this scene, he now displays mental discipline as he mindfully glances at the mother.