Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring 春去春又来 by Kim Ki Duk, Awardee for Cannes Un Certain Regard

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring

春去春又来

Directed by Kim Ki Duk

Korean & Drama & 2011 & 103 mins & Korean with English Subtitles & M18

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AWARDS

Best Picture, 41st Grand Bell Awards, South Korea

Best Picture, Blue Dragon Awards, South Korea

Audience Award, San Sebastian Int’l Film Festival

Youth Jury, Netpac, Don Quixote, CICAE Awards, Locarno Int’l Film Festival

 

The exquisitely beautiful and very human drama SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER… AND SPRING, starring director KIM Ki-duk, is entirely set on and around a tree-lined lake where a tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breath-taking landscape. The film is divided into five segments with each season representing a stage in a man’s life. Under the vigilant eyes of Old Monk (wonderful veteran theatre actor OH Young-soo), Child Monk learns a hard lesson about the nature of sorrow when some of his childish games turn cruel. In the intensity and lushness of summer, the monk, now a young man, experiences the power of lust, a desire that will ultimately lead him, as an adult, to dark deeds. With winter, strikingly set on the ice and snow-covered lake, the man atones for his past actions, and spring starts the cycle anew… With an extraordinary attention to visual details, such as using a different animal (dog, rooster, cat, snake) as a motif for each section, writer/director/editor KIM Ki-duk has crafted a totally original yet universal story about the human spirit, moving from Innocence, through Love and Evil, to Enlightenment and finally Rebirth.

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QUOTES

“A sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie” – VARIETY

**** “Thoroughly enjoyable and magical” - THE SUNDAY MIRROR

**** “A charming and rewarding film” – THE GUARDIAN

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DIRECTOR’S NOTE

Following an award at Cannes International Film Festival 2011 for his film Arirang, taking home the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section, Kim Ki Duk was often called a genius for hunting out locations.

Director Kim Ki Duk conceived of the brilliant idea of creating a floating cell after discovering Jusan Pond. LJ Film was able to attain permission to build the set after finally convincing the Ministry of Environment through six months of negotiations. A dream-like set was completed with the assistance of Korea Buddhist Art Academy and O Sang-man Art Center.

”I intend to portray the joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure of our lives through four seasons and through the life of a monk who lives in a temple surrounded only by nature on Jusan Pond. Five stories of Child Monk, Boy Monk, Adult Monk, Elderly Monk, and old Monk will coexist with images of each season. The changing qualities in living human beings, the meaning of maturity in our lives that are formed and how they develop, the cruelty of innocence, the obsession in desires, the pain in murderous intentions, and the emancipation in struggles…”

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