I have seen a lot of Asian movies in recent years, almost all of them in the horror genre. I have noted that Buddhism has a minimal presence in Asian horror, which contrasts greatly with Christianity in Western horror. But there is a Buddhist cinema making itself visible of late.
Yesterday I watched the splendid film Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring. It is a 2003 production from South Korea. The film is simply stunning, and stunningly simple. The setting is confined to a floating temple on a mountain lake, along with a nearby waterfall and pool. The misty mountain landscape, along with the rushing water over rocks, is both breathtaking in itself, and a Dharma lesson for anyone who pays attention.
It begins with an old Buddhist priest raising a young boy on this floating temple. Each of the seasons depicts a stage in the life of the boy, who (small risk of spoiler here) will eventually replace his master. The central action (Fall) turns around a visit by a teenage girl, whose mother brings her to the temple to cure some unspecified illness. The now teenage monk (Young-min Kim) naturally falls in love with her, and that spices the film up with a little very visual sex.
The old priest is not surprised or offended by his protégé's indulgence. "It's only nature," he remarks. But he warns: lust leads to the desire to possess, and that leads to murder. Sure enough, the young man leaves to pursue his love, and returns a wanted man with a bloody knife. The most intense scenes occur when the young man has returned, and is doing penance by carving the Heart Sutra into the wood deck of the floating temple. This Sutra (or scripture) is central to Zen Buddhism throughout Asia. Detectives arrive to arrest him, but before they depart they end up helping him finishing the carving.
The most interesting if subtle feature of the film is the two doors. One is inside the temple. There are no internal walls, but the young monk tries very hard to move between the two "chambers" by going through the door, even when he is sneaking over his master to join his lover on the other side. It looks simpler just to go around, but he is loath to do so. The other is a double door at the dock that the characters row towards to get off the lake. It has two muscular spirits carved into it, presumably to keep out demons. It is not so effective. But the water is usually high enough to invite one to merely row around the door and land on the bank. No one ever does. Some doors are like that. Try as we might to find an alternative, we inevitably have to pass through them.
This is a beautiful film. If you want to see the Dharma presented in a 90 minute DVD, this is a good place to start.
ps. Where is Buddhist in good standing, Todd Epp?
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