Talking with Korean Filmmaker Kim Ki-duk

This short interview originally appeared in the April 2004 issue of Venice Magazine.

The Magnificent Seasons of Filmmaker Kim Ki-dukBy Terry Keefe

"I think that a human being's life is very similar to the four seasons. The four seasons all have very different characters," says South Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-duk about the inspiration for his new feature Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.... and Spring. The exotically beautiful film uses the changing seasons to structure the story of an Old Monk (Oh Young-soo) and his young protégé, Child Monk (Kim Jong-ho), over some of the most significant events of their lives.

We are first introduced to Old Monk and Child Monk in the early days of Spring when nature is just starting to come alive again. The pair live on a floating Buddhist monastery on a gorgeous, tree-lined lake, and Child Monk finds lots of little animals to play with, such as fish and frogs, which he maliciously tortures by tying rocks to. Old Monk teaches his young protégé a lesson by tying a large rock around Child Monk himself while he is sleeping, to provide him with first-hand knowledge of what cruelty feels like. In the next segment, Summer has come and Child Monk has become Boy Monk (Seo Jae-kyung), a young man of 17. A young Woman (Kim Jung-young) has been brought to the monastery for spiritual healing, which she finds in a quick but passionate love affair with Boy Monk. The young man learns of both desire and anger for the first time here. When Old Monk sends the young Woman back home, Boy Monk remains infatuated with her and decides to leave the monastery to pursue his love. Fall has crept over the monastery in the subsequent segment and Old Monk lives by himself amongst the dying leaves. Boy Monk has been gone for over a decade, but now returns as Young Adult Monk (KimYong-Min), a fugitive who killed his wife in a jealous rage. Two policemen come to retrieve him, but they patiently wait as Old Monk makes Young Adult Monk learn to find peace in his heart by hand-carving dozens of large Buddhist sutras into the deck of the monastery. The next segment finds Winter with a harsh grip on the ice-caked monastery. Old Monk is long gone, but Adult Monk (played by director Kim Ki-duk himself) once again returns, full of repentance. He cleans up the monastery and forces himself to drag a millstone up a huge mountain. Upon the summit, he reflects on all that he has learned. Soon, a mysterious Veiled Woman brings an infant to the monastery, leaving it in the care of Adult Monk. And when the brief final segment of the film begins, it is once again Spring. Adult Monk is teaching his own protégé, the abandoned infant who has become a child. Thus the cycle of life starts once more.

The film's exquisite cinematography was shot on Jusan Pond, a man-made body of water which is 200 years old. When asked about the challenges of shooting a film largely on a pond, Kim Ki-duk says, "It's kind of dangerous to shoot a film on the water. But I always believed that there was something or someone guiding and protecting me from the danger of the situation. I had one experience when we went to look at the location for the first time. One of my crew members thought he saw a weird, giant thing in the water. And nobody knew what it was. So I then thought that maybe this land was kind of holy or mysterious.”

Kim Ki-duk was a painter before becoming a filmmaker. But although he has created a film which features magnificent photography of nature, he says, "As a painter, I never did landscapes. I always sketched profiles. I believe that nature is more beautiful in itself than on the canvas. I now satisfy myself by doing my painting through film."