It’s the biggest movie of the week, possibly the year — The Da Vinci Code. But the distributors didn’t screen it for the critics, either because of bad timing (we’re not supposed to see it before it opens at Cannes, apparently) or because it’s so awful that they fear negative reviews will harm its box office. Not that that should make much difference to this blockbuster — bad reviews didn’t harm Dan Brown’s book. But that’s usually why movies don’t get shown in advance to critics — remember Aeon Flux, anyone?
Whatever the case, we can go to the opposite end of the spectrum and check out a movie that is opening on only two screens — Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring, showing at the Labia in Cape Town and at Hyde Park Nu Metro in Johannesburg. The latter will probably be a DVD projection, so if you like you can go and see whether this latest technology is up to scratch or not; does it really make a decent subsititute for proper film projection?
It means something in the case of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring, because the film’s visuals are such an integral part of the whole: the lovely images of a Buddhist temple floating in the middle of a lake, and the serene beauty of its surroundings, are essential to the film’s overall effect.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring is directed by South Korean Kim Ki-Duk (or Ki-Duk Kim, Kim being the surname). Kim is an interesting filmmaker because he was entirely untrained in filmmaking, and did not work his way up in the industry via the usual jobs, such as script supervisor, assistant director, et cetera. Instead, he was a factory worker, an army marine, and a pavement artist, it is said, before winning a screenwriting contest in 1993 and then directing his first movie, Crocodile, in 1996. This tale of a man who rescues a would-be suicide, only to rape her, shocked viewers, particularly in socially conservative Korea.
Kim openly declared himself to be ”anti-mainstream”, and happy to be confrontational. His subsequent movies (and he has made a lot) include Real Fiction (2000), about a man who decides to murder everyone he hates, confirming the sense that Kim’s movies are mostly about alienation, violence, despair and the marginalised figures of society. He has been accused of misogyny, misanthropy and nihilism.
In the light of this, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring surprised viewers when it first came out in 2003. It was hailed as signalling a new ”maturity” on Kim’s part, but that’s largely because it’s so unlike his earlier work. Why does it take more ”maturity” to make a relatively calm movie than it does to make a shocker?
At any rate, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring certainly has a meditative tone, though there are eruptions — and a certain dark humour, too. And, despite its superficial tranquillity, there is some ambivalence lurking beneath the surface, which gives it a kind of slow-burn provocativeness. The movie has the flavour of a parable, telling its tale in five sequences that correspond to the seasons given in the title. The whole thing is set in and around the floating temple, focusing on one man’s connection with that temple. In the beginning, he is a child, apprenticed to the old monk who lives there (it’s really just a house with a prayer room in it). In ”Summer”, he’s a young man with the expected lusts and an urge to get away; in ”Fall”, he returns … and so on.
Perhaps, as some have suggested, the film is trying to transmit a Buddhist message, but it feels more simple, basic and universal than that. It’s not ”deep”. Kim’s style is direct and upfront; everything is on the surface. He keeps things as straightforward as possible — the characters are named only as Old Monk, Child Monk, Boy Monk, Adult Monk, and so on. The special quality of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring lies in its visual beauty, which is inseparable from its contemplative, almost prayerful tone — a feeling it maintains even when it lurches into unexpected events. It is, for sure, unlike anything else you’re likely to see on circuit at the moment, or for a long time to come. When a big-budget mainstream Hollywood movie such as Memoirs of a Geisha is going as an ”art movie”, one treasures the rare appearance of something genuinely different.