Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
Each time I try and write about Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring the cheesy Circle of Life song from The Lion King starts playing in my head. Not because this movie is cheesy, but because it does tell a circular parable for a young Buddhist boy (and it doesn't help that The Lion King was once a very popular movie in my house). Set primarily in an isolated monastery built in the middle of a lake, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring the story of a young boy's journey to manhood told in five distinct acts. In each of the five parts a lesson is learned and the boy learns something of life, guided by his teacher and his own interactions with the world. Each act contains an element of surprise; the conflict of the sequence, that must be overcome in order for the boy to move to the next stage in his life. While the movie is best described as a drama, it defies any genre at times, delivering moments of humor, dark comedy and tragedy before arriving at it's conclusion. Director Ki-Duk Kim, who also plays one of the more moving characters in the story, uses the changing of the seasons metaphorically to move through life's emergence, growth, decay, death and rebirth, carefully coloring each scene to match the tone. The film is Korean with English or French subtitles, but I found the subtitles almost more distracting than watching the story unfold, relying more on the visualization than dialogue to convey meaning.
Continue reading "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring" »
OldBoy is a movie best explained as a Korean telling of a Greek tragedy. Director Chan-wook Park is a masterful storyteller, leading us on an adventure not easily forgotten. Oh Dae-su spends a night on the town with a friend and wakes up locked in a room with no windows. The next 15 years find the television as his only companion. Daily meals sent through a slot in the door sustain his health. He watches on television the news of his wife's murder and the presumption of his involvement in the crime since he cannot be located. To occupy his mind, he plots his escape through a hole dug in the wall and consumes all available television programming between fits of exercise. When he finally escapes, he wants to discover who did this to him and why. It's at the point of escape where Min-sik Choi, the actor playing Oh Dae-su, turns out a marvelously manic performance that carries the rest of the movie. The why part of the question gradually reveals itself to be one of the more disturbing movie plot lines I've ever seen. While the movie is most definitely violent and somewhat graphic in nature, most of the really unnerving stuff takes place off screen in your mind, employing the forgotten art of suggesting violence rather than graphically depicting it. There's no happy ending to the story, although everyone gets what they want as the story draws to a conclusion.
Hollywood Trivia and Reviews
