Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring Again Einstein Notion of Time
Kim Ki-duk, Spring, Summertime, Fall, Winter … and Spring
A man for all seasons
The Bodhisattva of Compassion,
When he meditated deeply,
Saw the emptiness of all five skandhas
And sundered the bonds that caused him suffering.
—The Heart Sutra
IN A Globe obsessed with finding significance and validation through being a somebody,Bound, Summer, Autumn, Wintertime … and Leap tells the story of a solitary monk who has plant meaning through forsaking the secular realm and diving deep into the very depths of his own soul. And withal, despite his secluded existence, the outside world inevitably comes calling, reminding us that detachment can simply ever truly exist a state of mind and disposition of heart.
Written and directed by Korean auteur, Kim Ki-duk'south exquisitely cute masterpiece filmed at Jusan Pond in North Gyeongsang Province in South Korea portrays the subsequent relationship betwixt a Buddhist renunciate and his immature protégé, characters whose names are never relayed. Nevertheless, despite the motion picture'south absence of whatever specific temporal referencing,Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Bound is a securely sophisticated meditation on the vagaries of the man condition reflected within the passing seasons of nature.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring.
Photo: © Sony Pictures Classics
Here then,
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form.
Course is only emptiness,
Emptiness but form.
—The Heart Sutra
Alike to Michelangelo Frammartino'southward Le Quattro Volte, which explores similar themes associated with the transience of life set against a backdrop of the natural landscape, the stunning alpine topography forms an integral chemical element to this elegiac drama, with each of the 5 titular segments representing a stage in a homo'south life and the associated lessons he must learn.
Despite the minimal use of dialogue, through the use of Buddhist iconography and Aesopian symbols, we become acutely aware of the inherent message of the ancient nondual teachings embodied in the doctrine of the Iii Universal Truths—annica (impermanence), dukka (suffering) and anatta (no self)—as they unfold throughout the movie, with the principles of the 4 Noble Truths—the causes and abeyance of suffering—forming the didactical framework through which the plot evolves.
Spring, Summertime, Autumn, Winter … and Spring
Photo: © Sony Pictures Classics
Moreover, in a film steeped in visual imagery, the lake itself functions as a metaphor for universal listen, its silent waters the very embodiment of the enlightenment land, with the floating hermitage representative perhaps of the delicate self, drifting silently atop its omnipresent depths.
Similarly, the monastery's humble rowboat is symbolic of the individual's journeying on the spiritual path. Beautifully painted with images of Guan Yin (the bodhisattva of pity and mercy) as she extends a mitt that holds the lotus-born child, Maitreya, the future Buddha, it is the yana or vehicle by which the immature monk is transported to his spiritual destiny, beyond the body of water of samsara to the mountain shore of liberation and release.
Bound, Summertime, Autumn, Winter … and Spring.
Photo: © Sony Pictures Classics
Feeling, thought and option,
Consciousness itself,
Are the same as this.
All things are past nature void
They are not born or destroyed
Nor are they stained or pure
Nor do they wax or wane.
—The Centre Sutra
And thus it is springtime. In the manner of a dramatized Eastern fable, the moving-picture show commences with two wooden carved doors of a "gateless gate" creaking open up to reveal a mysterious monastery globe-trotting upon the serene surface of a pond, whose sole occupants are an old monk (Oh Young-soo) and his child disciple (Kim Jong-ho). Life is quiet and simple and like any young male child, the main's student enjoys playing with his puppy and collecting herbs until ane solar day, he is consumed by the capricious cruelties of childhood.
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Spring.
Photograph: © Sony Pictures Classics
After tying pebbles to a fish, a frog and a snake, the young monk later on awakens to discover that he himself is fettered past a big smooth stone tied to his dorsum. It is the first harsh lesson to be learnt, not through angry chastisement only by redemptive endeavour: the quondam monk calmly instructs the young male child to release the creatures from their suffering, vowing that if any of the animals die, "Yous will carry the stone in your heart for the residual of your life."
Indeed, the first Noble Truth—the nature of suffering—is a grave precept to accept on lath at such an early age, made all the more poignant by the weeping of the boy when he discovers that although the frog has managed to survive, both the fish and snake have perished, signalling a portentous omen of that which is nonetheless to come.
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Spring.
Photograph: © Sony Pictures Classics
Then, in emptiness, no course,
No feeling, thought or option,
Nor is there consciousness.
No eye, ear, nose, natural language, body, listen;
No colour, sound, olfactory property, taste, touch,
Or what the mind takes hold of,
Nor even act of sensing.
—The Heart Sutra
The wooden gates open up one time again, this fourth dimension on the flavour of summer. The young novice is now a teenager (Seo Jae-kyung), moderately good at keeping the Buddhist rituals of the temple in identify. Soon, however, the tranquillity of the hermetic dwelling is disturbed by the arrival of a immature adult female, afflicted with an unspecified malady. The master allows her to stay in order to restore her concrete and mental strength, noting calmly, "When she finds peace in her soul, her trunk volition return to health."
Jump, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Spring
Photograph: © Sony Pictures Classics
Needless to say, the young adult female awakens sexual want in the student, with their playful flirtations culminating in passionate lovemaking amidst shoreside rocks and the hull of the principal'due south rowboat. Upon discovering their hole-and-corner tryst, the one-time monk is, however, unmoved and simply observes, "Lust leads to want for possession, and possession leads to murder," once again foreshadowing later events. He then dispatches the young woman, at present healed, back to her female parent. The educatee is devastated and, forsaking his monastery home, follows after her leaving his eremitic life behind.
The lush and arcadian environment where nature is in its fullest flower has seeped deep into the soul of the pupil, stimulating the innate demand for consummation and lust. Indeed, the master acknowledges the inevitability of his protégé's actions by stating wrily it is only natural for him to succumb; without the total realization of the Buddha'south teachings, the cause of our pain and anguish, as the second Noble Truth wisely informs the states, is unfettered craving and desire.
Jump, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Jump
Photo: © Sony Pictures Classics
No ignorance or end of it,
Nor all that comes of ignorance;
No withering, no expiry,
No stop of them.
—The Heart Sutra
The wooden threshold now reveals the inflow of autumn. The old monk has considerably aged and yet his minor life is as it always was. Returning from a trip to replenish food supplies, by take a chance, the main notices devastating news most his former student reported in the local newspaper. Anticipating his imminent arrival, the pupil returns, now a thirty-year-old fugitive (Kim Youg-min), on the run from a fierce crime he has recently committed.
Jump, Summer, Fall, Wintertime … and Spring
Photograph: © Sony Pictures Classics
In an act of penance, the student attempts suicide but his master beats him brutally before writing out the Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamitahrdaya or The Middle of the Perfection of Wisdom) on the monastery deck, using his cat'southward tail as a calligraphy castor. When he finishes, he commands the young monk: "Carve out all of these characters and while you are etching, anger volition be cut out of your heart." Every bit the disciple's rage dissipates through the painstaking transcription, two policemen go far to arrest the young monk and behave him away to his fate.
Again, the old monk is left lonely to reflect upon the purpose of life. His duty towards his erstwhile student is at present completed for he understands that even the pursuit of wisdom itself is rooted in emptiness. He builds a funeral pyre in the rowboat and, covering his ears, eyes, olfactory organ and mouth with paper in the fashion of the traditional Buddhist decease ritual, is engulfed by flames as the boat drifts slowly across the lake, the scene closing with a snake slithering along the hermitage deck.
Bound, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Spring
Photograph: © Sony Pictures Classics
Nor is at that place pain, or crusade of hurting,
Or stop in pain, or noble path
To lead from pain;
Not even wisdom to attain!
Attainment too is emptiness.
—The Centre Sutra
The creaking of the wooden doors now reveals winter has descended upon the secluded monastery, long since abandoned and frozen in ice. Once again, the educatee returns (as the director himself, Kim Ki-duk), this time on parole as a mature homo in eye historic period. Coming to the realization that his beloved teacher has left the temporal world, he excavates his master's charred remains from the icy corpse of the rowboat, placing them on the chantry, and so embarks upon a new life of prayer, meditation and qigong.
Leap, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Bound.
Photograph: © Sony Pictures Classics
The monk'due south spiritual journey is finally coming to an cease equally the last ii of the Buddha's Noble Truths are now realized through penance and disciplined adherence to the steps of the Eightfold Path. And thus, in a pilgrimage of atonement for the aggregating of all the suffering in his heart, both unwittingly and wittingly enacted, the monk takes out a statue of Guan Yin, then attaches a millstone to his torso with a rope and drags it to the top of a mountain, whereupon he sits in meditation, looking down on his floating hermitage and reflecting upon the unending cycles of man existence.
It is not earlier long that a veiled woman appears, bearing an infant, whom she entrusts in the care of the monk. Slipping away in the dead of nighttime, the immature mother slips on the frozen pond's surface and falls downwardly a hole, only to be discovered the following morning trapped lifeless under the water ice.
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Spring.
Photograph: © Sony Pictures Classics
So know that the Bodhisattva
Holding to nothing whatsoever,
But dwelling in Prajna wisdom,
Is freed of delusive hindrance,
Rid of the fear bred past it,
And reaches clearest Nirvana.
—The Eye Sutra
The wooden threshold opens one final fourth dimension on a cute spring day. The infant is now a young boy and the former pupil is now master to his new charge. The pupil is seen tormenting a turtle, harking back to the capriciousness of his predecessor at the beginning of the tale and the egoic seed of zipper and devastation impregnated within in all beings, preparing usa however again for the cycle of life to showtime anew …
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter … and Spring.
Photo: © Sony Pictures Classics
Thus the circle of life repeats itself once again—nature rejuvenates herself every four seasons, human being reincarnates himself through the lifespan of every human and even so everything remains exactly as it was, is, and shall forever be. As the film fades into emptiness, for several moments afterwards we feel the ambience sounds of the natural earth—the tinkling of the wind chime, birdsong, the lapping of water against the rowboat—standing to resonate deep within u.s., instilling reverence for the sacredness of nature and sublimity of the empty void.
Exquisitely scored and shot with each frame exuding the composition of a painting, Spring, Summertime, Autumn, Winter… and Spring transmits a transcendental beauty all of its own, elevating the soul with its elegant and timeless aesthetic from innocence, through dearest and evil, to enlightenment and finally rebirth, subtlely and silently observed by the impassive gaze of a bodhisattva.
Spring, Summertime, Autumn, Winter … and Spring.
Photograph: © Sony Pictures Classics
All Buddhas of past and present,
Buddhas of futurity fourth dimension,
Using this Prajna wisdom,
Come to total and perfect vision.Hear so the great dharani,
The radiant peerless mantra,
The Prajnaparamita
Whose words allay all pain;
Hear and believe its truth!Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate
Bodhi Svaha
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate
Bodhi Svaha
Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate
Bodhi Svaha
—The Heart Sutra
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Post Notes
- Michelangelo Frammartino: Le Quattro Volte
- Pavel Lungin: The Island
- Alan Watts: Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown
- Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Remember His Past Lives
- Philip Gröning: Into Great Silence
- Edward A. Burger: Amongst White Clouds
- Paula Marvelly: The Monasteries of Meteora
- Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching
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Source: https://www.theculturium.com/kim-ki-duk-spring-summer-autumn-winter-and-spring/
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