I just finished watching Kim Ki-deok's "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring". I wanted to share my thoughts with you in a few words, but I found it was too difficult. For such a film with few dialogues, obscure and beautiful, it is really difficult to fully and accurately understand the director's original intention. It may be true as the ancients said, what each person has in his heart will be what he sees in his eyes. In this way, this story full of metaphors and symbols should be handed over to every viewer for their own evaluation. I'm just here to mumble a little bit to let everyone know what I saw in this video.
In the plot, the director tells a story of reincarnation using the natural reincarnation of spring, summer, autumn, winter and spring as a marker.
Spring: An old monk and a child lived in a lonely temple on the water far away from the world. The child tied a stone to a small fish and a snake out of curiosity. When the old monk saw what he had done, he drew a gourd and tied a stone to him, and taught him to look at everything around him with the same heart. When the child carried the stone on his back to uncover the stone for the little fish and snake, he found that he had made an unforgivable mistake, and he wept bitterly at the body of the little fish and the snake.
Summer: Children have grown into young monks. One day a sick girl came to the temple. The young monk couldn't resist the temptation and finally ate the forbidden fruit with the girl. The old monk found out about the two, and the girl had recovered, so he sent the girl away. The young monk could not bear the pain of losing his lover, so at night, carrying the only Buddha statue in the lonely temple, he secretly left.
Autumn: A young monk becomes a wife murderer because his wife cheated on him. With nowhere to run, he returned to the solitary monastery that raised him. Due to the hardships of life, he is no longer the peaceful look he used to be, his face is surly and his heart is full of anger. The old monk enlightened him and ordered him to carve the Prajna Buddhist scriptures on the ground to purify his violent heart. After dawn, the wife murderer was safely taken away by the police.
Winter: The murderer who was released from prison is already middle-aged. He returned to the temple, and the old monk has passed away. One night, a woman came to the temple with a baby and cried bitterly in front of the Buddha statue. One night a few days later, when the woman planned to abandon the baby and leave secretly, she fell into an ice cave on the lake and died. The middle-aged monk adopted the baby. The middle-aged monk finally attained enlightenment. He sank the old Buddha statue into the lake. With the stones on his back and the new Buddha statue in his arms, he climbed hard to the top of the mountain. When he reached the top of the mountain, the solitary temple in the lake and even the entire lake was against the backdrop of the mountains. It seems trivial...
It's another year of spring: Tong Seng is doing the same prank, stuffing stones into the mouths of small fish and snakes...
In my opinion, spring, summer, autumn and winter correspond to Buddhist philosophy. There are four stages of formation, dwelling, badness, and emptiness, ranging from curiosity, simplicity, and incomprehension, to dwelling full of instincts and desires (possessive and erotic), and then from love to hate, full of violence The "bad" with anger is finally attributed to the "emptiness" that observes the origin of life and is silent and empty, and another spring should be an interpretation of the director, reflecting the director's deep sadness for the inability of human beings to escape their fate and nature.
I don't know if the director believes in Buddhism or not, and if he wants to convey the teachings of Buddhism to the audience, but in my opinion, the whole film is full of Buddhist verses, and in those obscure and subtle pictures, there are hints of Zen. In the seemingly aesthetic scene design, there are metaphors and symbols everywhere. Here, I briefly talk about my understanding.
The first is the door. The door is undoubtedly a symbol of taboo in the film. From the mountain gate without a wall in the solitary temple in the lake to the door in the temple that stands opposite to each other without a wall, the door represents a kind of taboo and norm, although there is no wall , but in the film, all the people still follow the rules to go out and enter, open and close the door. It was not until the young monk had an affair that he jumped over the "wall" and threw himself into the arms of the girl without passing through the door.
The solitary temple located in the lake represents everyone's world. The solitary temple stands alone in the center of the lake, unable to move. It quietly suffers from the changes of the seasons and has no connection with the outside world. I want to go to the lake. The only means of transportation is the boat, and all who come by chance are karma and fate. In the early stage of the film, the lonely temple represented the world of the old monk. It was as indisputable and independent as the old monk, so the temple did not move because of its unmoved heart. No matter the seasons changed or the guests came and went, the lonely temple always watched silently. Later, after the old monk passed away, the whole temple began to move in the picture. The solitary temple in the later period heralded the world of middle-aged monks, and the hooded women and orphans were the cause and effect. After the middle-aged monk became enlightened, he climbed the mountain and finally found that his world was nothing but a grain of sand, so he realized The ultimate concern for the world.
The Buddha statue symbolizes the understanding and enlightenment of the world. At the beginning of the movie, there is only one Buddha statue in the lonely temple that has been damaged. The old monk carefully cleaned the Buddha statue. , still at the stage of "existing", he wanted to not forget his past and known truth by owning a Buddha statue. When he killed his wife in anger, he brought the Buddha statue back to the temple, and the Buddha statue did not teach him to forget his anger. And when he finally attained enlightenment, he sank the old Buddha image into the lake, and he finally had his own "new Buddha".
The only contact between the lonely temple and the shore is the dilapidated boat. The boat symbolizes the passage for us to communicate with the outside world. When the old monk saw the police escorting the young man he had raised since childhood, he couldn’t help but be moved. , so no matter how you row, the boat can't move forward. Only when the old monk's heart is released can the boat continue to move forward. The boat also brought karma with the outside world. Whether it was the arrival of a girl who was recovering from illness, the arrival of law enforcement police, or the return of a wife murderer, they all came to the Solitary Temple in the Water through the boat.
The stone is a double symbol of sin and redemption. At the beginning, the young monk put the little fish on the stone just because of curiosity and fun, but when the old monk tied the stone to him, he was being redeemed because he experienced "suffering". , when he saw that sentient beings died because of the "stones" they should not carry, he finally realized the suffering of sentient beings and cried bitterly. After the middle-aged monk attained enlightenment, he finally understood that afflictions are Bodhi, and he carried a large rock on his back and embraced a Buddha statue to climb to the top of the mountain, which indicates that he will eventually be redeemed from sin and burden.
The stone lion in front of the temple gate. When the girl first came, she sat on it. The young monk told her not to sit on it. When the two secretly tasted the forbidden fruit, he took the initiative to move the stone lion to a suitable place for the girl to rest. This may be what is called "distinguishing mind" in Buddhism.
At the beginning of the movie, the old monk and Tong Seng went to collect medicine together. The old monk threw away the medicine that the young monk had picked up and told him that the medicine he had picked was poisonous. The young monk asked, "They look the same." The monk told him that "the difference between poisonous and non-poisonous is only a white line". This seemingly insignificant plot may be exactly what the director wants to tell us, love and possession, Buddha statue and Buddha's meaning, sin and redemption, trouble and Bodhi may all be just "a white line".
The weapon used by the young monk to kill his wife is not as simple as it seems. When the old monk ordered the young man to use the blood-stained knife to inscribe the Heart Sutra on the floor at the door, the knife was not only a The murder weapon is also a tool for young people to seek redemption and find themselves back.
The heart sutra written by the young man in one night of the world was finally painted in bright colors by the old monk and the two policemen who came to arrest him. Is it conveying the idea that we are not alone and that great love is still there?
Animals that appear in the film: fish, frogs, snakes, grasshoppers, a chicken and a cat are more complex.
The snake runs throughout the film. Let’s first discuss the snake that is probably the easiest to understand. I haven’t studied the meaning of the snake in Buddhism, but in Christianity, the snake is undoubtedly a symbol of desire and sin, such as the one in Genesis. The serpent who tempted Eve to taste the forbidden fruit. According to Freud's theory, the snake is also a symbol of the male genitalia. The snake is also a symbol of healing, as represented by the serpent staff of the Greek god of medicine Aysgrass. From these perspectives, we may understand a little bit more about the repeated appearance of snakes in the film. The snake that appeared at the beginning was Tong Seng who went to collect medicine, and the master told him to be careful of snakes. In my opinion, the snakes at this time were desire. The snake, because of the child's innocence, he cannot be hurt by the "snake", and he can throw the snake away by grabbing the snake at will. The snake that appeared later was the one that the young monk saw outside the mountain gate in Xia Xia intercourse. The snake here is the snake of desire and sin, which implies the awakening of youth's desire and the appearance of original sin. The last snake that appeared was the one that appeared when the old monk passed away. This snake that did not hibernate in winter represented the old monk's concern and treatment. After the middle-aged monk returned, the snake represented the old monk who continued to accompany the old monk. middle-aged monk.
The position of the chicken and the cat in the film is very special. What they have in common is that they are both used as tools. The chicken is used as a hook to pull back the boat carrying the two of them, and the cat is used as a writing heart sutra. 's pen. They have all become tools for the salvation of young people. These animals, which seem to be much lower than humans, have finally become tools to save people. Is it conveying some animistic belief of the director?
Frogs, fish and damaged snakes, I don't know if the director's choice of these species is arbitrary, but it's hard for me to ignore the different categories they belong to. Fish live in water, frogs are amphibious, and snakes live on land.
Who is the woman in the hood? Was it the wife killed by the young monk? or someone else? The film has never revealed the mystery, and her death is very strange. What does the director want to convey to us in the setting of this plot, or is he just trying to attract our attention?
All in all, this almost dialogue-free film is full of puzzles that can be interpreted in different ways, through which each of us can look into our own hearts. What impresses me most in the film is the last image of the Buddha looking at the world and the Buddha's music in the last paragraph. Perhaps enlightenment can only be obtained after we climb high enough and realize that our world is only a corner of the vast world.
I recommend everyone to watch~!
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