SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER...AND SPRING
2003







May 5, 2004
Camera 3
South Korea / Germany
Korean

Sort of like doing meditation in a movie theater with other people. Hypnotic and slow moving. Perhaps too slow for many. We watch a boy grow into an old man in stories divided by the seasons. We see the clash between modern life and the life of a monk in Korea. Maybe the most zen film I've ever seen. What could be more zen than a temple that floats on water as it moves around an isolated lake in the mountains. They are at the mercy of the tides and the ice schedule and the wind. They need a boat to go ashore to pick herbs or to pick up ill patients who visit them for healing. Beautiful to look at, with an absolute minimum of dialogue.

***^ Berardinelli