Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring
(Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom)
written and directed by Ki-duck Kim

            Beauty fills much of the imagery in Ki-duk Kim’s new film about a Buddhist monk living with a young apprentice in the middle of a secluded lake. That this beauty lies in the photography of nature and the poetics of inflated parable comes off contrived and artificial in spite of itself with a script that is both clever and eventually uninspired. Divided as five vignettes as the boy learns about life, grows up and falls in love, abandons his master and then returns a criminal, the plot is too convoluted to warrant the film as meditation. Two detectives enter the world, modern and armed distracting even during what transpires because of their unbalancing lack of comfort. Even worse is the last chapter, brought full-circle as more backtrack than revolution, which means to be so insightful and instead drives redemption down the throats. Not nearly the biggest cinematic exploitation of or embarrassment to Buddhist philosophy, there is much wisdom still in avoiding it.