Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring is an understandably simple Buddhist parable.  Though the narrative tracks the spiritual progression of a young monk through the seasons, effortlessly jumping decades with each significant change in his life, the film adheres strictly to its location in nature, a breathtakingly picturesque Korean lake on which floats a modest Buddhist temple.  From this, then, it becomes clear that all the film really does is follow the seasons, and the few humans in the movie, like the temple itself, simply drift on top of the reliably shifting landscape.

One could be entirely satisfied focusing only on the film’s nature photography, as director Kim Ki-Duk has chosen a lake that seems to render an endless variety of beautiful seasonal moments-frozen waterfalls, mid-summer showers, late evening fog, autumn-crisp leaves-the lake seems a magical place where anything in nature that can be imagined can be found.  The story itself, unfortunately, is a bit too trite.  It takes the form of a textbook parable on human desire, contemplative understanding, and life’s circularity that, for better or for worse, a child could easily discern. It is the few moments in-between Kim’s larger picture that contain the film’s charm.  When the child monk is foraging the lakeside picking herbs (having been warned to look out for snakes) Kim shows a deadly looking snake approaching him.  The child looks up at the snake, which is merely inches away, momentarily startled.  But instead of fleeing the child simply picks the snake up by the neck and casually flings it out of harm’s way.  Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring is not necessarily replete with such charming and subtly meaningful moments, but their accumulation, along with the bountiful splendor of the film’s isolated location cannot fail to move.