Bowing and pranams all around ... namaste, have a nice day.
Here's a movie, "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring." It's Korean. I don't think I've ever seen a Korean movie before. It is definitely a good one. Have you ever heard of it? Do you ever look at the foreign titles at the local video store? I wasn't looking for it but saw it and decided to risk $1.89 to watch it. Good choice.
This is a movie like I always think I want to see. A movie without a clear plot. The conflict throughout is man against himself, and even then it's more like man accepts himself, then overcomes himself to experience his real self. There's guns and sex and murder and unpleasant things aplenty, but it's all part of the person's development and tangential to the story in a way it wouldn't be in other movies.
You can tell by the title and by the sequential nature of it -- seasonal vignettes -- what's going to happen, which is OK. You just want to see whatever growth, whatever acceptance, whatever regrets, etc., are going to come about.
There's an older man and a child, who grows, on a small lake, in the middle of the lake, in a little house. They have a wooden dock surrounding the house, out there floating. They have a rowboat and they're back and forth to the shore continually. They do various Buddhist rituals, and that's their religion. It's very interesting that their bedroom is not walled off from the rest of the interior of the house but they have a standing door that they use. I'm thinking I need one of those kind of houses. No walls, but still have doors. It seemed appealing.
The young man grows, makes mistakes, learns about suffering by suffering. The old man seems quiet, not exactly disappointed but expecting all this. He doesn't jump in continually to help correct the young man's mistakes, but does offer some guidance, especially when he's a tiny kid. The kid's tormenting little animals and learns a lesson that stays with him till the end.
They go through the seasons. There's a girl on board for a while. This is where the sex happens. The young man is growing up and has to learn.
As for the appearance of things in the movie, it's all very beautiful. It plods along in places where you'd expect them to cut it and let time lapse more quickly. But it's all OK. You see him crawling up a hill in excruciating detail, for example. It's a movie to think about.
Several quite unexpected things happen. At least from my point of view. It's a movie worth finding.
