Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Gyeoul Geurigo Bom

I was in fact to just put here the trailer and a few photos and that would be it, for this movie needs not be told with words after words; this extremely silent and wise movie needs to be viewed. But, then again.. I could not help myself. I do not think of myself as that of spiritual person and yet, this movie, with its clever symbolism and complete peace, did impress me.

Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Gyeoul Geurigo Bom, aka Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, is a 2003 South Korean film directed by Kim Ki-Duk and unlike his previous films which were criticized for being excessively violent misogynist, this is a quiet, peaceful and musing work; it tells the story of the life of a Buddhist monk, passing through the seasons of his life.

Spring
The monk, in his childhood, is a young Buddhist apprentice, living with his master on a floating monastery. They lead a simple life, filled with praying, meditating and from time to time, going to the shore by a rowboat to take a walk or to collect herbs. During one of those visits to the shore, the young apprentice tortures a fish, a frog and a snake by tying a small stone to each of them and laughing by himself as the animals struggle. The master quietly watches the apprentice without him noticing and at that night he ties a big stone on the apprentice's back; when he wakes up in the morning, the master says that he can not untie the stone unless he finds the tormented animals and sets them free, adding that if any of them has died, he will "carry the stone in his heart forever". The apprentice finds the frog still struggling at the same place he left it and sets it free, however, the fish and the snake are dead; the apprentice cries heavily while the master watches him.

Summer
The teenager apprentice greets a mother and her daughter in the shore and takes them to the monastery. The girl is sick and the two come to the monastery hoping to get a cure, thus, the master accepts to take the young girl in for a while until she gets better. In the following days, the apprentice gets sexually attracted to the girl and after a few rejection, she eventually joins him in a trip to the forest where they have sex. They go on like this, secretly, for a while until one morning the master finds them lying naked next to each other in the boat. He does not express any anger or disappointment, however he says that the girl must leave immediately for she is now fully cured and he warns the apprentice saying "lust leads to desire for possesion, and possesion leads to murder". Unable to forget her, the apprentice soon after leaves the monastery in the middle of the night taking the Buddha statue with him.

Fall
The aging master sees in a newspaper by chance that his apprentice who left years ago is wanted by the police for killing his wife. He guesses that the apprentice would come there and he gets ready to welcome him. The apprentice does arrive there soon, still full of anger, carrying the knife he used to kill his wife. In a short while, he makes a suicide ritual, however the master beats him by a bat showing him that he will not get away with this and end his life easily; he then writes "Heart Sutra" on the deck of the monastery and asks the apprentice to carve the letters. As the apprentice goes on carving without stopping for a moment, the police comes to arrest him, however the master asks them to wait until the apprentice is finished with carving next day. He falls asleep as soon as he is finished, and the police, somewhat taken away by the soothing existence of the master, helps him to paint the letters in various colours, and they take the apprentice with them when they are finished. After they leave, the master makes a suicide ritual, meditating until he suffocates and is burned to death.

Winter
The apprentice, now middle-aged, comes back to the monastery drifting uninhabited for years after he gets out of the prison and starts living there, meditating and exercising every day. One day, a mysterious woman whose face is covered with a purple scarf comes to the monastery with a baby; after spending the night there, she leaves the baby and tries to flee, but falls into a hole the monk dug up before. Finding the woman dead because of that, the monk ties the large circular stone of the monastery to his body, and climbs to the summit of the highest mountain there.

and Spring
As the cycle is completed by returning once again bact to 'spring', the apprentice, now the master, lives in the monastery with the baby grown a few years to his childhood and now the apprentice himself. He torments a fish, a frog and a snake, completing the cycle and showing us that it will go on and on.


While I love almost everything about the film, one thing keeps bugging me; the good old woman as the root of all evil concept. It may be almost essential to use that as it is the one of the oldest beliefs and the reason - or cause, I am not sure - of the othering, however, I can not take it anymore and beg the movie genii to use a new concept of evil - well then again, maybe the director does think of the women as above, thinking of the possible clues he had been giving in his previous movies.


From many aspects, the movie may be thought as a 105 minutes meditation and this would not quite be a false statement, not only for its beautiful and peaceful cinematography but also the way of story-telling and possibly the story itself; yes it is a meditation and you do not want it to end.