Spring, summer, autumn, winter ... and spring

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Movie
German title Spring, summer, autumn, winter ... and spring
Original title 봄, 여름, 가을, 겨울… 그리고 봄 (Bom, Yeorum, Gaeul, Gyeowool… Geurigo Bom)
Country of production South Korea ,
Germany
original language Korean
Publishing year 2003
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Kim Ki-duk
script Kim Ki-duk
production Karl Baumgartner ,
Lee Seung-jae
music Ji-woong Park
camera Baek Dong-hyeon
cut Kim Ki-duk
occupation
  • Oh Yeong-su: old monk
  • Kim Ki-duk : Monk in winter /… and spring
  • Kim Young-min: former novice in autumn
  • Seo Jae-kyung: Novice in summer
  • Ha Yeo-jin: The girl
  • Kim Jong-ho: novice in spring /… and spring
  • Kim Jung-young: mother of the girl
  • Ji Dae-han: First Commissioner
  • Choi Min: Second Commissioner
  • Park Ji-a: Hooded mother
  • Song Min-young: The toddler

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring (Original title: 봄, 여름, 가을, 겨울… 그리고 봄 , Bom, Yeorum, Gaeul, Gyeowool… Geurigo Bom ) is a 2003 film by the South Korean director Kim Ki-duk .

content

The film tells the story of a master - a Korean , a Buddhist monk - and his pupil - a child and novice  - a cycle of life and as a Bildungsroman . The setting for the film and the world in which the two hermits live is a raft hermitage on a lake in the middle of wooded mountains. The hermitage can only be reached by a single boat through a gate on the bank. The raft seems to lie motionless, in fact it swims and rotates on the lake, which is moved by a barely visible current and whose water level changes again and again - a dynamic that is symbolically denied to the camera and thus symbolically to the lives of both people.

spring

Growing up under the teachings of the Master and in a world of faith and prayer, the boy takes a boat across the lake to gather herbs in the woods alone. A snake approaches him, but without need he seizes the animal and throws it away. The successful self-assertion culminates in a joyful and selfish cruelty to animals: under the eyes of the secretly observing master, fish, frog and snake are tied to stones with cords that they have to pull behind them from now on: They are returned to a life that is now burdened.

In repentance, the master ties the sleeping boy a stone on the back. He should find the animals and free them from their burden, only then will the boy be released from his burden. But “if one thing dies: the fish, the frog or even the snake, then you will wear this stone on your heart for your whole life” - the first prophecy of the Master. Again under the eyes of the secretly observing Master, the boy can only free the frog alive. Under the boy's tears, the stone becomes a stone on his heart.

summer

A mother brings her mentally ill daughter to the hermitage in search of healing. Tender love, then stormy passion, is sparked between the pupil who has grown into a youth and the girl. The boy breaks with his previous life the moment he no longer uses the individual doors in the house, but simply walks past them - he chooses the easy route.

The master sinks the boat in which the lovers fell asleep. "Addiction arises from desire, and thoughts of murder arise from it" - the second prophecy of the Master. He brings the now healed girl back into the other, the "real" world. The next morning the boy follows the girl.

autumn

On the newspaper with a rice cake wrapped in it, the master recognizes his former student - now a man of thirty. The man is wanted for the murder of his wife, the girl. Back at his master's house, who is already waiting for him, he complains that the girl has denied him the promised loyalty. Even after the murder, he is full of anger and hatred, which the master encounters with “But worldly life is like this, it means learning to let go. What you like, others like too. ”In the forest or at the lake - as once in the spring under the eyes of the secretly observing master - the anger of the former pupil discharges into senseless destruction, with no hope of regaining his mental balance.

The master beats the former student with a stick after he tried to commit suicide and then prepares penance by taking extracts from the Heart Sutra (which - in Buddhist wisdom - reveals form and content as a non-dual unit) writes on the cat's tail on the raft, while the boy cuts his long hair with the help of the knife, to which the girl's blood is still clinging. “Even if you just kill others, you can't kill yourself that easily. Cut out these signs with the knife, sign by sign you will cut the anger out of your heart. "

Two commissioners arrive to bring the murderer to justice; but first he is allowed to finish his work, after which he collapses from exhaustion. The balance of this place of spirituality also brings the two commissioners to inner peace: they help the master to paint out the carved characters. Then it is time to bring the murderer to his worldly punishment after his soul is also back in balance. Due to his thoughts he stops the moving boat for a moment because he does not accept the final separation from his student.

After the loss of his student, the old and frail master decides to end his life. He later burns himself at a stake that he built in his boat. The boat goes down in flames, and he appears to rise again as a snake that lives on in the hermitage.

winter

After serving the sentence, the novice returns to the valley. The lake is icy, the hut is empty except for a snake curled up on the ground. The novice begins with intensive self-study in order to achieve the unity of body and mind and to become a master himself. A masked woman brings her little child to the master in order to entrust the young life to him with the greatest suffering and pain - her only way out. The woman flees into the night and drowns when she falls into an ice hole.

The new master exchanges the stone that has weighed on his heart since spring for a real millstone, which he pulls up the mountain behind him, he also drags a bronze Buddha figure from the hut with him. Memories of fish, frog and snake emerge in him. At the top of the mountain, he places the statue on the millstone and looks down at the lake and the hut.

... and spring

Growing up under the teachings of the new master, selfishness also prevails in the young student when he senselessly torments a turtle in joy and ecstasy. He forces stones into the mouths of fish, frogs and snakes, and with that he kills them. Except for the torture of the tortoise, these killing scenes cannot be seen in the German version or in most of the international versions of the film.

background

The film was produced by the South Korean production company LJ Film in collaboration with Pandora Filmproduktion. The film received financial support from the Hamburg Film Fund .

Jusanji in autumn

The location was the Jusanji Reservoir in the Juwangsan National Park of Cheongsong-gun in the South Korean province of Gyeongsangbuk-do . A hermitage floating on the lake served as a film set , which was dismantled after the end of the shooting. Kim received permission from the relevant authorities to build the monastery as a set for the film and to use it for a year. The site is part of a nature reserve in which no buildings are permitted. In contrast to Kim Ki-duk's earlier films, whose cast is made up of unknown actors, the theater actor Oh Yeong-su, who is renowned in South Korea, is seen in the role of the old monk. Kim himself took on the role of the now grown-up novice in the winter and spring episodes . According to Kim, a winter scene was not originally included in the script. He spontaneously decided to climb a 3600-foot (approx. 1100 m) high mountain at minus 30 ° C outside temperature, dressed as a monk, and he was filmed. The resulting scenes were incorporated into the film. The shooting lasted a whole year. The film was post-produced in Germany.

The film premiered on August 14, 2003 at the Locarno Film Festival and was subsequently shown at other renowned film festivals. The German theatrical release was on March 18, 2004 in a shortened version. Although Kim's film was only shown in art house cinemas, it was a great success internationally, especially in the United States, Germany, Argentina and Switzerland. Global box office earnings are estimated at $ 9.5 million.

The German DVD release took place on November 19, 2004 by Studiocanal . In a new edition of the DVD on October 12, 2007, the original cut version is included as bonus material. The film was first broadcast on German television on October 15, 2007 on Arte .

Reviews

The media response to the film was very good. At Rotten Tomatoes , 95% of the 95 total film reviews are positive; the average rating is 8.1 / 10. At Metacritic , the film received 85 out of 100 points out of a total of 29 reviews.

The film-dienst praised that "the quiet story" embeds "the cycle of human life in the annual cycle of nature". In the “beguiling picture sequences” and the “contemplative narrative attitude”, “real life is always present”. AO Scott of the New York Times judged that the film would portray the seasons in the life cycle with "enchanting perfection [...]." In doing so, Kim succeeds in crystallizing “something essential in human nature” and “recreating the sum of human experiences”.

Variety called spring, summer, autumn, winter ... and spring a "sublime, clever, courageous and spiritual film". His “greatest strength” lies in the depicted “aversion to the world”, which does not create a “Zen-like drowsiness”. "Crude humor" and "instinctual sexuality" act as a "counterweight to the sublime camera shots". The "hard film editing" focuses on the essentials. “Another plus point” is the “unconventional film music of various genres”. Roger Ebert appreciatively emphasized the directorial work, which sharpened “the senses”, as there was “no or only a few dialogues, no explanations, no verbal messages”. Ebert summed up that “rarely” has a film “touched him so deeply”; Kim shows "life as it always has been".

Urs Jenny was surprised by the film in the mirror and explained that Kim's previous work was characterized by the portrayal of “urban society as a predatory society”, in which the protagonists act in “self-destructive rage”. The earlier films are said to have “something deeply barbaric”, although the sequences of images vibrating “with a sense of horror” also exude a “strange, fascinating calm and beauty”. Kim's new work, however, contains "nowhere a shock picture". It is “lyrical”, “indulging in beauty” and exuding a “serious, unreal meditative calm”.

Andreas Kilb of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote that Kim avoids “kitsch” by maintaining “distance” from “the characters” and “their symbolic reality”. The film has a “tendency towards demonstration and teaching”, but “the comic and tragic aspects of the event” are kept “in suspension” by the effortless flow of the images. Kilb praised Kim's film for combining “two motifs that are actually mutually exclusive: cruelty and meditation” and is “a reflection of world events in an enchanted miniature”.

Awards

In 2016, spring, summer, autumn, winter ... and spring came 66th in a BBC survey of the 100 most important films of the 21st century .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for spring, summer, autumn, winter ... and spring . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2004 (PDF; test number: 97 245 K).
  2. ↑ a b Comparison of the cut versions of the international version - original version of spring, summer, autumn, winter ... and spring at Schnittberichte.com
  3. ↑ Spring, Summer. Autumn, winter ... and spring. filmportal.de , accessed on March 15, 2015 .
  4. ^ Hamburg Film Funding - The decisions in September (Committee 1). Busch Entertainment Media , September 24, 2002, accessed March 15, 2015 .
  5. ↑ a b Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring. Korea Tourism Organization, accessed March 15, 2015 .
  6. ↑ a b Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring. (No longer available online.) Arte , October 17, 2007, archived from the original on April 2, 2015 ; accessed on March 15, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arte.tv
  7. ↑ Hye Seung Chung: Kim Ki-duk (Contemporary Film Directors) . University of Illinois Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-252-07841-5 , pp. 176 (page 113) ( online [accessed March 15, 2015]).
  8. ↑ Till Brockmann: A life in five seasons. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , December 19, 2003, accessed on March 15, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Hamburg Film Festival honors Kim Ki-duk with the Douglas Sirk Prize. Filmfest Hamburg gGmbH, August 12, 2012, archived from the original on August 27, 2012 ; accessed on March 15, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring (2003). Release info. Internet Movie Database , accessed March 15, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Spring, summer, autumn, winter ... and spring. Pandora Film GmbH & Co. Verleih KG, accessed on March 15, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring. Box Office Mojo , accessed March 15, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring (DVD). (No longer available online.) In: kino-zeit.de. Kinowelt Home Entertainment, archived from the original on April 16, 2015 ; accessed on March 15, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kino-zeit.de
  14. ↑ Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring - Arthaus Collection. (No longer available online.) In: kino-zeit.de. Arthaus Filmvertrieb , archived from the original on April 2, 2015 ; accessed on March 15, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kino-zeit.de
  15. ↑ Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring (2003). Rotten Tomatoes , accessed March 3, 2015 .
  16. ↑ Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring. Metacritic , accessed March 3, 2015 .
  17. ↑ Spring, summer, autumn, winter ... and spring. film service , accessed March 3, 2015 .
  18. ^ AO Scott : A Buddhist Observes Humanity With Sharp and Stern Eyes. The New York Times , March 31, 2004, accessed on March 3, 2015 (English): “[…] joining the cycle of the seasons to […] rhythms of the life cycle, has a beguiling perfection. [...] Mr. Kim manages to isolate something essential about human nature and [...] even more astonishingly, to comprehend the scope of human experience. "
  19. ↑ Derek Elley: Review: 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring'. Variety , August 14, 2003, accessed on March 3, 2015 (English): “[…] a sublime, witty, gritty and transcendental movie […]. Pic's major accomplishment is that it deals with abstract ideas, […] or boring the audience into a Zen-like stupor. […] Rough humor […] and […] animal-like sexuality […] acts as a counterweight to […] magisterial lensing […] Tightly cut […], pic hasn't an ounce of spare flesh, [… ] unconventional, varied score [...] is a further fillip. "
  20. ↑ Roger Ebert : Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring. In: RogerEbert.com. Chicago Sun-Times , August 26, 2009, accessed March 3, 2015 : “There is little or no dialogue, no explanations, no speeches with messages. [...] That causes us to pay closer attention. […] Rarely has a movie […] moved me this deeply. [...] He descends upon lives that have long since taken their form. "
  21. ↑ Urs Jenny : Seascape with monks. Der Spiegel , March 15, 2004, accessed March 3, 2015 .
  22. ↑ a b Andreas Kilb : Korea shines: Kim Ki-Duks parable "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter ... and Spring". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 17, 2004, accessed on March 3, 2015 .
  23. ↑ a b Andreas Kilb : Locarno Film Festival Courage without heroes: winners and experts on Lake Maggiore. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 18, 2003, accessed on March 3, 2015 .
  24. ^ Locarno International Film Festival 2003. Internet Movie Database website . Accessed January 26, 2014.
  25. ↑ 51 edition. 2003 Awards. Website Festival Internacional de Cine de Donostia-San Sebastián . Accessed January 26, 2014.
  26. ↑ 2005, 11th Annual Awards. Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film website . Accessed January 26, 2014.