If you want to know the causes of past lives, you will receive them in this life, and if you want to know the results of future lives, you will do it in this life. - The Sutra of Cause and Effect
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In the history of cinema, Korean films have always adopted a unique observational perspective and narrative approach to form a film style that is independent of other countries.
Among The Korean film directors, there is one who is also very different from other directors, and this director is Kim Ki-duk.
The most unique and profound of the films created by Kim Ki-duk is, I think, his work "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring".
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In this film, not only through the in-depth expression of the traditional oriental Zen meaning, but also through the director's understanding of the philosophy of life, to express the entanglements and sins encountered by people in real life, and their theme of redemption.
In this film, there is no direct emotional catharsis, nor is there a violent aesthetic that stimulates people's vision, but more importantly, it is to understand life in a small temple in a beautiful lake.
Understand the splendor and cruelty of spring in life, the desire and beauty of summer, the madness and madness of autumn, and the cycle of four seasons after the precipitation of winter.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1. Spring: The Death of Snakes and Fish is a metaphor for the cruelty of children and the pursuit of freedom</h1>
Spring, as people understand it, is the season when everything recovers and flourishes.
In this season, everyone seems to have vitality, and the heavens and the earth have begun to usher in new hopes with a new look.
It is the spring in this work, and it does not seem to be very different.
What the director wants to express in depth is the cruelty and brilliance of a person's childhood.
Spring in a small temple
In the small temple in the lake in the spring, only the old monk and the little monk were isolated from the world, and in this paradise with beautiful mountains and rivers, under the surface calm, was the cruelty encountered by the little monk in the process of growing up- the playful little monk tied stones to the body of small fish, frogs and snakes, and when they were powerless to struggle, the little monk smiled very happily.
In order to educate the little monk, the old monk also tied a large stone to his body when the little monk was asleep, and taught the little monk through empathy, to learn to respect life and respect the existence of every living being.
But what was irreparable was that under the action of the little monk, the snake and the fish died tragically, and the little monk lost his voice and cried bitterly.
Among the themes of spring, the film goes deeper into his metaphorical symbolism. It's like a snake tied to a stone by a little monk.
In traditional cultures, the serpent represents temptation, just as the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve in the Bible.
The small fish symbolizes the little monk's longing for freedom.
The tragedy of life caused by greed is precisely a metaphor for the choices of life and the helpless future experienced by the little monk in the following chapters.
Little monk with a crush
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2.Summer: The Warning of the Rooster, a metaphor for the cause and effect of the little monk who let down his guard</h1>
In the summer of the second chapter, the little monk ushered in his youth, and the young man of the little monk was full of lust and temptation.
The days when the young monk and the old monk lived in the temple in the center of the lake welcomed new guests.
The new guests were a mother and daughter, who were about the same age as the little monk, but had a strange illness.
In order to heal her daughter, the mother took him to the temple and sought out the old monk to treat him.
Then the daughter stayed in the temple and the mother returned home.
Because of the presence of new guests, the little monk had a strange mood, the little monk had never met the opposite sex, and was upright in his youth.
A beautiful girl full of youthful breath walked into the eyes of the little monk.
But at this time, the little monk did not understand love and the world, but only approached the girl through the instinctive desire for his own life, trying to get emotional satisfaction in the relationship between the two people.
In the process of meeting and getting acquainted with him again and again, the girl accepted him, and gradually became in love with the little monk, and then came together with the little monk.
At this time the little monk believed that for him, life had entered a better summer. At this stage the little monk even thought that there was nothing but love and affection that would make him linger.
However, lingering around the girl again and again also made the old monk see the fate of the emotional dilemma that the little monk could not get rid of.
In order to warn the little monk, the old monk warns and reminds the little monk who is caught in lust through the rooster.
A metaphor for the rooster
While the little monk and the girl were asleep in the boat in the early morning of the night, the old monk found their figures, and the rooster appeared again, reminding the little monk that he should control his emotions in life, otherwise there would be unpredictable changes.
After that, the girl's illness was cured, and there was no reason to stay in the temple, so the old monk offered to let her go home, and the girl reluctantly went home.
The departure of the young girl made the little monk extremely anxious, and in the desire of his heart again and again, the little monk was determined to leave the temple and return to the world, and then went down the mountain to find the girl.
And when he left, the little monk did not forget to take the Buddha statue and the rooster in the temple, but on the way down the mountain, he put the rooster back into the mountain field - this metaphor also has a very strong color.
The rooster represents the warning and reminder, without the warning and reminder of the old monk, the little monk is doomed to sink in the world, and even let go of his persistence.
Reminder of the old monk
Once this vigilance is let go, it means that the little monk will fall into an irrepressible anger and desire in his life, which also lays the groundwork for his later actions—many tragic scenes of all life have been foreshadowed before.
Here, the reflection of the director's expression of causal reincarnation is reflected, and what is more in-depth is the director's understanding of traditional Buddhist Zen.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3.Autumn: Seal engraving of the Heart Sutra, a metaphor for liberation and the nirvana of the old monk</h1>
Autumn is a season of anger and madness, and the little monk who leaves the temple does not get the happiness he seeks, nor does he get a happy ending.
In the secular world, because of his wife's betrayal, the little monk killed his wife in anger, and finally, in order to avoid the police, he had no choice but to return to the temple.
In the face of sin, the little monk had the idea of committing suicide, which was discovered and dissuaded by the old monk. The old monk was extremely angry at the idea of the little monk's life, and asked him to make the little monk by engraving the Heart Sutra on the floor. Give up your violent mood.
In the end, under the pursuit of the police, the little monk really gained inner peace, confessed his guilt, and confessed his guilt and served his sentence.
But on the other side, the old monk thought he had cultivated an apprentice with blood on his hands and said goodbye to life by self-immolation.
Empty and quiet little temple
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >4. Winter: Abandonment of babies, the end of one cycle and the beginning of another</h1>
In the last chapter, in the middle of winter, the little monk reaches middle age, and after serving his sentence, he returns to the temple in the lake.
However, the cause and effect could not be eliminated, and one night a masked woman came to the temple, leaving behind a baby boy she could not raise.
However, the little monk accidentally lost his life in the ice cave left by the little monk, and the little monk could only raise the abandoned baby left behind after atonement.
Since then, a cycle of reincarnation has gradually emerged.
The change from old monk to young monk, and then to the emergence of new little monk, is a metaphor for the change of cause and effect and reincarnation that a person has in his life.
It seems that everyone's life is like this:
When I was a child, I was curious about everything and didn't know how to respect life.
When he was a teenager, he longed for the existence of love, sank in the beautiful love, and then let go of the vigilance.
In middle age, when there is a marital crisis, or even a life crisis, it is treated with a grumpy and irritable mood, which leaves a curse, and in a series of life troubles and experiences, precipitates the true meaning of life.
The little monk who grew old became an old monk again.
Confession of the little monk
Another spring, the new little monk still went to treat the little fish, the little snake and the little frog in a cruel way.
Just as the old monk painted colorful colors on the Heart Sutra carved by the little monk, what he told the little monk to show in the last paragraph of his life was that all the various things in the world were still empty in the end.
Just like the seal engraving of the Heart Sutra stroke after stroke, only after being baptized and refined for life again and again can the stability of the soul be obtained.
For the perception of life, the understanding of the philosophy of life, the director tells us that life is only once, but we can practice the choice and persistence of morality and ethics all our lives.
As Confucius said, "Fifty have five and are determined to learn, thirty are standing, forty are not confused, fifty are aware of the Mandate of Heaven, sixty ears are obedient, seventy are obedient to the heart, and do not exceed the rules",
Every stage of life has the characteristics of each stage, and it is never possible to transfer the experience of the old monk directly to the little monk, and the emotional impulses of the little monk cannot be saved through the vigilance of the old monk's rooster.
Another spring
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >5</h1>
The place where the old monks and young monks lived was in the lake temples in the deep mountains and wild forests, but what could not be escaped was still the practice of those secular worlds again and again.
Although they are less troublesome than many modern people, the troubles of youth and the entanglement of middle age cannot be shaken off.
The "four emptinesses" belong to only those who have thought deeply about it.
Just like the little monk returning from his sentence, in order to redeem, he tied a boulder around his waist, embraced a Buddha statue, climbed a mountain peak, and tried to climb up again and again, all of which had a realistic forward.
In his life, we seem to see all the experiences that a person can obtain in his lifetime.
Although this film does not express how to seek a spiritual harbor in the materialistic world in modern society, he offers us a path of understanding the original meaning and value of our lives in the temples of the mountains.
The beauty of life is not only those magnificent scenery, but also the cruelty, regret and redemption behind the magnificent scenery.
Therefore, we can see the deeper meaning that Kim Ki-duk, the director, wants to express - winter will always pass, another summer will come, the unstoppable torrent of life will always move forward, and only the unchangeable piety to goodness in the heart can save a person.