In 2003, South Korean director Kim Ki-duk's "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring" was released, which caused a huge response. It won the Don Quixote Award at the 56th Logallo Film Festival, the Asian Film Promotion Alliance Award, the International Association of Arts Association Awards, the Youth Jury Award, the Golden Leopard Award (nominated); the 5th Las Palmas International Film Festival two awards; the 16th European Film Awards Universal Screen Award (nominated)... Even Korean audiences who have always been critical of him (Kim Ki-duk belongs to the director of "blossoming inside the wall and incense outside the wall", and many Korean audiences label him "pornographic director" and "crazy director") have also given him "favoritism" at local mainstream film festivals: he won two awards at the 24th Korean Film Blue Dragon Awards for Global Screen and Best Technology; the Best Film Award at the 41st Daejong Awards...
Why did the pickpocket list so many awards won by this movie? It is because before this, although Kim Ki-duk's films can cause certain repercussions in the Niche Market in Europe, they are not popular with mainstream audiences in South Korea and China, such as his early works such as "Crocodile Hidden Corpse", "Drifting Desire Room", "Beast Capital" and other works are banned in South Korea and China. But the release of "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring" changed the mainstream audience's perception of Kim Ki-duk. Many film critics have even arisen a school of film that studies Kim Ki-duk - Kim Gak-seok. But most critics like to analyze Kim Ki-duk's films from the aspects of aesthetic choice, artistic creation, portrayal of human nature, surrealism, open narrative, and ultimate care. Here, Pickpocket tries to take you through the use of symbols, imagery, and symbolism in Kim Ki-duk's films only from the perspective of film elements.
Venice with Film Festival Kim Ki-duk's "Third Eye"
Take the movie "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring" as an example.
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring is a Korean film directed by Kim Ki-duk and starring Kim Young-min, Oh Young-so and Kim Ki-duk. The film freezes the story in the four seasons of summer, autumn and winter, the sin and redemption that occur in the spring, the desire and indulgence in the summer, the love and hate contained in the autumn, the philosophy and reflection in the winter, and then another spring, life is endless...
<h1> There is nowhere to hide and no desire to return</h1>
The film is a silent film that is similar to a silent film — 104 minutes long and no more than 10 lines. All the stories take place in another enclosed environment: surrounded by mountains on all sides, surrounded by a lake, with an island in the middle of the lake, and a city temple with an old monk and a small monk.
One day, a young and beautiful girl came to the temple to heal her wounds, and the young monk could not bear the loneliness and fell in love with her.
Through this simple introduction, we ask the rhetorical question: the mountain is closed, enclosing the lake; the lake is closed, the temple is enclosed; the temple is closed (ritual, moral, religious constraints), surrounded by people... So, what about the human heart? What about desire?
Every shot in the film is obviously carefully polished and considered by the director, and metaphors are everywhere, making people think. More importantly, a series of suggestive props are transformed into symbols, full of symbols, and converged into images, allowing people to analyze the desire to have nowhere to hide and no way back, so as to reflect on the elusiveness of fate.
For example, doors without walls on either side symbolize subjective self-awareness when constrained by desire.
For example, a frog tied to a stone symbolizes self-blame and guilt after indulging desires.
For example, herbs and poisonous herbs that are difficult to distinguish between true and false symbolize reduced judgment in the face of temptation.
Snakes, roosters, boats, cats, fish, Buddha statues... These symbolic props have been transformed into symbols by Kim Ki-duk to metaphorically describe the relationship between man and desire.
At the same time, it is very noteworthy that in the analysis of Kim Ki-duk's films, one of the imagery that must not be ignored is "water"! From his debut novel "Crocodile Hidden Corpse" to "Drifting Desire Room", and then to this "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring", the image of water is everywhere. Also taking "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring" as an example, the spring lake ripples symbolize the budding of desire, the summer lake flood symbolizes the eruption of desire, the autumn waves symbolize the reflection after the desire is raging, and the frozen lake in winter symbolizes the self-salvation after desire is banned. Water is fickle, soft or hard, soft or weak; water is also beautiful and dangerous, sometimes poetic, sometimes cruel.
Kim Ki-duk chooses to use these symbolic film elements one after another to separate people and people's desires to form an opposition, although it is public but clear - the process of confrontation, reconciliation, redemption, and reflection between people and desires is actually the process of finding oneself!
But will this desire, which has nowhere to hide, have a way back?
<h1> Endless reincarnation</h1>
The contradiction between man and desire (at least as shown in the film) is that Kim Ki-duk's solution is to put it into samsara.
The film is divided into four parts, and he cleverly uses the four seasons of "spring, summer, autumn and winter" to tell the story of a monk's "invasion of desire": spring - the little monk ties a stone to the frog and kills the fish out of greedy curiosity; summer - the young monk can't help but be lonely and the sick girl tastes the clouds and rain for the first time; autumn - the middle-aged monk (who is also vulgar) faces his wife's cheating and brutally kills him; winter - the former little monk has become an old monk, a woman abandons a baby, and the baby becomes a little monk...
Reading this, do we feel that the elements of Kim Ki-duk's films not only have strong ancient Greek characteristics, but also have the flavor of our Zen Buddhism - he is "drawing circles", he is "playing the machine", and he is also telling stories, but more importantly, outside the story, he tells us the philosophy of life, and also expresses his concern for human nature.
The film "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring" shows from beginning to end the confrontation between man and desire, the whole process of man completing self-redemption through faith, and the purification of the soul after redemption.
Just this heavy topic, Kim Ki-duk relies on religion, put this problem into the never-ending cycle of reincarnation, is the problem solved?
<h1> Symbols of reality – islands, maidens, and love and possession</h1>
"Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring" uses film elements to express Kim Ki-duk's reflection on reality: the surrounding mountains, the sealed islands, the pitiful and fragile maidens I see, the poetic scenery... These point either to society, or to each of our individual individuals—they or they are constantly being cut and hurt.
If the girl does not break into the life of the little monk, how can the little monk get love? But isn't it contradictory that the little monk (who has gained love) brutally kills his wife (loses love) in order to possess? This is of course contradictory! But if we think about it, isn't love and possession understood at a deep level exactly a pair of double contradictions?
At the same time, if you are familiar with the reality of Korean history, politics, economy, culture and other realities, have you found that these symbols, images, and symbols in kim ki-duk's film elements are completely "deliberate"! (I won't expand it due to space limitations, and I don't seem to be able to expand it either)
<h1> epilogue</h1>
There are seven components of a film's cinematic elements: language, story, structure, thoughts, angles, emotions, and shots. If you use these seven elements to analyze Kim Ki-duk's film one by one, it is obviously a long-form masterpiece. Based on this, the pickpocket sister only tries to interpret it from the perspective of symbols, images and symbols. But as the interpretation deepens, confusion also arises: Most of Kim Ki-duk's films are rigorously structured, how can they become free and loose with the analysis?
In fact, here, many friends have discovered that Kim Ki-duk's films have the shadow of the "New Wave" - seemingly unstructured, but in fact, it is the value and significance of the film structure! At the same time, Kim Ki-duk skillfully integrates painting (who himself is a painter), Zen, Confucianism, psychology and many other disciplines into the film. The choice and use of film elements is only a small part of Kim Ki-duk's films. Together with mood creation, aesthetic choice, narrative skills, social expression, ultimate care, etc., it has become Kim Ki-duk's "essential medicine", and it has been "disobedient" at major european film festivals!
Kenzaburo Oe once appealed at the Nobel Prize ceremony: "Please pay attention to the marginalized! ”
Here, the pickpocket sister appealed: "Please pay attention to the edge director! ”
I am a pickpocket sister outside the circle, like me please pay attention to me!