Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring [film]

sova

[imdb] This film takes place in an isolated lake, where an old monk lives on a small floating temple. The wise master has also a young boy with him that teaches to become a monk. And we watch as seasons and years pass by.

Dakini

We've had threads on this before. I didn't like it, I thought it was grim. Maybe someone could explain the meaning of it to me.

sova

@Dakini

I just watched it for the first time this evening. It is a pretty heavy movie. :bawl:

Don't know what it's about, but I thought it was neat how things flow into Spring again.

I do not know much about Vietnam, but I think the historical anchors of the film are apparent..

There is a lot one could infer about the Master and disciple, I'm curious to see what other people got from it.

DaltheJigsaw

I love this film! I will watch this again! Thanks for the reminder!:)

zenff

Dakini said:

We've had threads on this before. I didn't like it, I thought it was grim. Maybe someone could explain the meaning of it to me.

After winter there will be a new spring. Seeds open.

After the old teacher died he will be replaced with a new one; coming from a seed
planted a long time ago.

When a student appears to have left the way the seed will open up later.

The same thing with seeds of early mistakes in life; they open up later in life too.
(fish dragging a stone; man dragging the burden of his mistakes)

After Buddha Gautama is forgotten there will be Buddha Maitreya (the statue the man drags up the mountain is one of Maitreya).

It’s all about life returning after winter and how old seeds open up.
Imho.

sova

zenff said:

After Buddha Gautama is forgotten there will be Buddha Maitreya (the statue the man drags up the mountain is one of Maitreya).

@zenff
Cool! Thank you for pointing that out

genkaku

(the statue the man drags up the mountain is one of Maitreya).


Thanks ... I thought it was Kuan Yin.

zenff

This one is in the movie.

http://www.boeddhaforum.nl/index.php?topic=1240.0

And this statue of Maitreya is National treasure nr. 83 in the National Museum of Korea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SeatedMaitreyaKoreaMuseeGuimet.jpg

I think they are identical.

zenff

And here's a review of the movie: A lot more sophisticated than my simple observation.

http://zatma.org/Dharma/zbohy/Literature/essays/mzs/film.html

Vastmind

:bawl:

sova

I'm sorry for the mix-up. Due to Vietnamese subtitles being available on Youtube I assumed it is a Vietnamese film, but it is indeed a [South] Korean film.

Thanks @zenff for the link to that review, it's superb.

A small excerpt for interested parties:

When we acquire knowledge of ourselves as independent beings, the gates to the material world open. These sensory gates enable our illusionary human egos to encounter and then to covet the alluring but equally empty forms of the material world. We suppose that we are seeing and hearing the real world. We are not. The real world is inside us, in the spiritual realm of the Buddha's Refuge, and we must learn the hard way, through bitter and painful experience, to shut our sensory gates against these deceptive external attractions.

It is desire that causes us to leave the Buddha's Realm just as it is desire that drives us to return to it.

That the film is not to be taken literally is immediately made clear by the improbabilities of the setting and by the magic that is so easily accomplished:

An Old Monk, with virtually no means of support, a young boy, and a few animal pets, live on a temple raft that is mysteriously anchored in the middle of a high, circular mountain lake. But it is fixed like the axis of a wheel, and time and the shore can revolve around it.

The temple's interior is one single space; but while there are no walls or partitions, there are doors through which the occupants pass...

Jason

One of my favourite films. It's visually beautiful tale with many ways to interpret it. Certain aspects of it, for example, remind me of the story of Angulimala. Some of its themes are quite weighty and grim, but I think they reflect some pretty weighty and grim aspects of samsara like suffering, lust, jealously, anger, birth, ageing, death, rebirth. And for every seemingly negative act by the protagonist, there are also good acts planted by him that eventually sprout into the path towards awakening, and which leave him to teach a new generation the difficult lessons both life and his master have taught him.